Complicating the Relationship Between Cellular Senescence and Late Life Depression

Inflammatory signaling may be influential in major depressive disorder. For any condition in which inflammation is important, attention should be given to the possible role of cellular senescence, given the advent of senolytic therapies to clear these cells. Senescent cells grow in number throughout the body with age, and while never a large fraction of all cells, they energetically generate pro-inflammatory signals. Here, researchers discuss the sometimes there, sometimes not correlation between burden of senescent cells and incidence of major depressive disorder in later life. Previous studies suggested the role of cellular senescence in late-life depression (LLD). However, it is unclear how this finding relates to common features of LLD, such as medical and cognitive problems. We applied factor analyses to an extensive battery of clinical variables in 426 individuals with LLD. Here we tested the relationship between these factors, age and sex, with an index of cellular senescence based on 22 senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) proteins. We found four factors: 'depression and anxiety severity', 'cognitive functioning', 'cardiovascular and cardiometabolic health' and 'blood pressure'. A higher senescence-associated secretory phenotype index was associated with poorer 'cognitive functioning' and 'cardiovascular and cardiometabolic health' but not with 'depression and anxiety severity'. When interpreting this finding, it is critical to note ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs