Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35332134›Full record

ArticleTranslational psychiatry2022

No increase in inflammation in late-life major depression screened to exclude physical illness.

Eline T Luning Prak, Thomas Brooks, Walid Makhoul, Joanne C Beer, Ling Zhao, Tommaso Girelli, Carsten Skarke, Yvette I Sheline

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Translational psychiatry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
13citing papers in PubMed
1.3field-weighted citation impact, top 22% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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  3. Remission is insufficient: predictors and mechanistic models of recurrence in late-life depression.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Eline T Luning PrakDepartment of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Thomas BrooksCenter for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress (CNDS), Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6980-0079
Walid MakhoulCenter for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress (CNDS), Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0035-5795
Joanne C BeerDepartment of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Ling ZhaoDepartment of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Tommaso GirelliCenter for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress (CNDS), Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Carsten SkarkeInstitute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT), Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5145-3681
Yvette I ShelineCenter for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress (CNDS), Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. sheline@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6929-9659
University of Pennsylvania · USTranslational Therapeutics (United States) · US

Funding

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA CAN CTR SUPPORT GRANTP30CA016520 · NCI · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · PI Robert H. Vonderheide · 1985 to 2026
$222.3M
Institutional Clinical and Translational Science AwardUL1TR000003 · NCATS · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · PI FITZGERALD, GARRET A · 2012 to 2015
$38.9M
STRESS AND INFLAMMATION IN THE PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF LATE-LIFE DEPRESSIONR01MH098260 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · PI SHELINE, YVETTE I · 2013 to 2018
$2.4M
Integrative Training in the Neurocircuitry of Affective DisordersT32MH106442 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · PI SHELINE, YVETTE I · 2016 to 2020
$1.1M
NCATS NIH HHS UL1 TR000003NCI NIH HHS P30 CA016520NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH098260NIMH NIH HHS T32 MH106442U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (NIH) P30-CA016520U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) 5UL1TR000003
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Depression is a common and debilitating disorder in the elderly. Late-life depression (LLD) has been associated with inflammation and elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines including interleukin (IL)-1β, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and IL-6, but often depressed individuals have comorbid medical conditions that are associated with immune dysregulation. To determine whether depression has an association with inflammation independent of medical illness, 1120 adults were screened to identify individuals who had clinically significant depression but not medical conditions associated with systemic inflammation. In total, 66 patients with LLD screened to exclude medical conditions associated with inflammation were studied in detail along with 26 age-matched controls (HC). At baseline, circulating cytokines were low and similar in LLD and HC individuals. Furthermore, cytokines did not change significantly after treatment with either an antidepressant (escitalopram 20 mg/day) or an antidepressant plus a COX-2 inhibitor or placebo, even though depression scores improved in the non-placebo treatment arms. An analysis of cerebrospinal fluid in a subset of individuals for IL-1β using an ultrasensitive digital enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay revealed low levels in both LLD and HC at baseline. Our results indicate that depression by itself does not result in systemic or intrathecal elevations in cytokines and that celecoxib does not appear to have an adjunctive antidepressant role in older patients who do not have medical reasons for having inflammation. The negative finding for increased inflammation and the lack of a treatment effect for celecoxib in this carefully screened depressed population taken together with multiple positive results for inflammation in previous studies that did not screen out physical illness support a precision medicine approach to the treatment of depression that takes the medical causes for inflammation into account.

Indexed as

Major Depressive DisorderAdultAgedAntidepressive AgentsCytokinesDepressionHumansInflammationAntidepressive AgentsCytokines

Identifiers

PMID35332134
PMCPMC8948274
OpenAlexW4220744127

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.