Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:1313-1316
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
CSF somatostatin in patients with Alzheimer's disease, older depressed patients, and age-matched control subjects
T Sunderland, DR Rubinow, PN Tariot, RM Cohen, PA Newhouse, AM Mellow, EA Mueller and DL Murphy
Unit on Geriatric Psychopharmacology, NIMH, Bethesda, MD 20892.
Somatostatin-like immunoreactivity was measured in the CSF of 12 patients
with Alzheimer's disease, 15 age-matched control subjects, and 20 older
depressed subjects. Patients with dementia or depression were found to have
lower CSF somatostatin concentrations than control subjects despite
markedly different clinical presentations. Severity of depression was
clearly different in all three groups but showed no significant correlation
with CSF concentration of somatostatin. There was a significant positive
correlation between CSF somatostatin-like immunoreactivity and cognitive
functioning in all 47 subjects, but this association was not statistically
significant within individual diagnostic groups. These data raise
interesting questions about possible biological links between Alzheimer's
disease and depression in older patients.
