ArticleBrain, behavior, and immunity2021
Investigating whether depressed youth exhibiting elevated C reactive protein perform worse on measures of executive functioning, verbal fluency and episodic memory in a large, population based sample of Dutch adolescents.
Article in Brain, behavior, and immunity, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effect of Anti-Inflammatory Treatment on Depressive Symptom Severity and Anhedonia in Depressed Individuals With Elevated Inflammation: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.The American journal of psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Inflammation and depression in young people: a systematic review and proposed inflammatory pathways.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Neural Correlates of Peripheral Inflammation in Major Depressive Disorder and Their Transcriptomic Architecture, Neurochemical Basis, and Behavioral Relevance.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Chronic inflammation is associated with worsening working memory performance: Preliminary evidence from a diverse, longitudinal cohort of adolescents and young adults.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Individuals with depression exhibiting a pro-inflammatory phenotype receiving omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids experience improved motivation-related cognitive function: Preliminary results from a randomized controlled trial.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2023Article
- Concurrent and prospective associations of inflammatory signaling, specific depressive symptoms, and substance use in adolescence.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2023Article
- Association between inflammation and cognition: Triangulation of evidence using a population-based cohort and Mendelian randomization analyses.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2023Article
- Article
- Geolocation features differentiate healthy from remitted depressed adults.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2022Article
- Associations between T cells and attention problems in the general pediatric population: The Generation R study.JCPP advances · 2021Article
- Lack of Associations Between C-Reactive Protein and Mood and Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescents.Journal of child and adolescent psychopharmacology · 2021Article
- Investigating whether a combination of higher CRP and depression is differentially associated with worse executive functioning in a cohort of 43,896 adults.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2021Article
- Inflammation and depression: Research designs to better understand the mechanistic relationships between depression, inflammation, cognitive dysfunction, and their shared risk factors.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2021Article
- Research progress on the neural mechanism of light therapy improving cognitive function in depression: from retinal projections to neuroplasticity.Frontiers in neurologyReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cognitive functioning is disrupted during a depressive episode and cognitive dysfunction persists when depression is in remission. A subtype of depressed individuals who exhibit elevated inflammatory biomarkers may be at particular risk for cognitive dysfunction. We examined whether an elevated inflammatory biomarker (C-reactive protein: CRP) in acute and/or remitted depression was associated with specific deficits in executive functioning, episodic memory, and verbal fluency. Data were drawn from a population-based sample of Dutch adolescents (N = 1066; 46% male) recruited at the age of 11 and followed over the course of eight years. We tested whether adolescents with either, (i) a history of depression (Wave 1-3) or (ii) current depression (Wave 4), and elevated levels of C-reactive protein measured in blood at Wave 3 performed worse on cognitive assessments at Wave 4. Eight measures of cognitive functioning were hypothesized to load on to one of three dimensions of cognitive functioning (executive functioning, episodic memory, and verbal fluency) within a structural equation model framework. Higher levels of CRP were associated with worse future executive functioning in adolescents with and without current/prior depression. A current depression diagnosis also was associated with worse executive functioning. There was consistent evidence linking low socioeconomic status and health-related covariates (high body mass index/sedentary behavior) with worse performance across multiple measures of cognitive functioning and, importantly, the association of depression/CRP and executive functioning was no longer significant when controlling for these covariates. Future studies may benefit from investigating whether specific depressogenic behaviors (e.g., sedentary behavior/substance use) mediate a relationship between depression and worse executive functioning, potentially via a prospective pathway through elevated inflammation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.