title: Peripheral telomere length and hippocampal volume in adolescents with major depressive disorder.
abstract: Several studies have reported that adults with major depressive disorder have shorter telomere length and reduced hippocampal volumes. Moreover, studies of adult populations without major depressive disorder suggest a relationship between peripheral telomere length and hippocampal volume. However, the relationship of these findings in adolescents with major depressive disorder has yet to be explored. We examined whether adolescent major depressive disorder is associated with altered peripheral telomere length and hippocampal volume, and whether these measures relate to one another. In 54 unmedicated adolescents (13-18 years) with major depressive disorder and 63 well-matched healthy controls, telomere length was assessed from saliva using quantitative polymerase chain reaction methods, and bilateral hippocampal volumes were measured with magnetic resonance imaging. After adjusting for age and sex (and total brain volume in the hippocampal analysis), adolescents with major depressive disorder exhibited significantly shorter telomere length and significantly smaller right, but not left hippocampal volume. When corrected for age, sex, diagnostic group and total brain volume, telomere length was not significantly associated with left or right hippocampal volume, suggesting that these cellular and neural processes may be mechanistically distinct during adolescence. Our findings suggest that shortening of telomere length and reduction of hippocampal volume are already present in early-onset major depressive disorder and thus unlikely to be only a result of accumulated years of exposure to major depressive disorder.
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.|Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Henje Blom
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.|Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: L K M
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: C G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Connolly
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: K Z
authors.initials: KZ
authors.lastname: LeWinn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.|The Veterans Affairs Health Care System of San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
authors.forename: A N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Simmons
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.|Neuroscience Programs and Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Sacchet
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mobayed
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Luna
authors.affiliation: Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, OK, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Paulus
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: E S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Epel
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: E H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Blackburn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: O M
authors.initials: OM
authors.lastname: Wolkowitz
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: T T
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012463:Saliva / Q000378:metabolism; D016615:Telomere / Q000378:metabolism*