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[P4–566]: ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF INFLAMMATION ON LIMBIC CIRCUITRY AND ITS ROLE IN DEPRESSION IN OLDER ADULTS
Author(s) -
VachonPresseau Etienne,
Meyer PierreFrancois,
Binette Alexa Pichet,
RosaNeto Pedro,
Poirier Judes,
Breitner John C.S.,
Villeneuve Sylvia
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2017.07.729
Subject(s) - amygdala , depression (economics) , nucleus accumbens , inflammation , medicine , limbic system , cohort , neuroscience , major depressive disorder , hippocampus , psychology , central nervous system , economics , macroeconomics
Background:More than 5 million Americans provide care for someone with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and rates are even higher if we consider Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), dementia, and other cognitive issues. Caregivers are at-risk for stress, depression, and mortality; as well as diminished relationship quality and less empathy for the spouse. Empathy plays a key role in how caregivers respond to stress, as well as impacting their spouse’s lives as it is a necessary component for perceiving and and responding to the spouses’ needs, without become overly distressed. Also, spousal interactions influence longitudinal outcomes (e.g., survival, well-being) for AD spouses (Wright, 1994), and social integration is associated with lower risk for dementia (Heser et al., 2014). However, AD/MCI partners’ reports of caregivers’ relationship quality may not be reliable, due to cognitive impairments that affect memory and social functioning. Also, empathy is not easily measured directly as caregivers may not always be aware of (or willing to share) their innermost sentiments and motives. Thus, we measure empathy implicitly, using fMRI, in a group of caregivers undergoing a meditation intervention that affects brain regions associated with self-regulation, empathy, and awareness versus an active control.Methods:Couples in relatively good health, and with the ability to read and understand consent forms are recruited from the Santa Barbara community. Participants complete standard measures of health, memory, empathy, and relationship quality; and the caregiver undergoes a fMRI task to measure empathy that includes viewing emotional faces of the partner (in previous studies published by our group). Results:We hypothesize that caregivers undergoing the meditation intervention (versus the control group) will show greater empathy and self-regulatory related neural response to emotional face images of the MCI partner. Conclusions: By advancing science on the neural and behavioral processes underlying social functioning in marriages where a partner hasMCI/ADwe hope that researchers, clinicians, and all people may gain knowledge and tools to help those with MCI/AD and their families to enhance their quality of relationships and lives.