Association of Anxiety and Depression With Microtubule-Associated Protein 2– and Synaptopodin-Immunolabeled Dendrite and Spine Densities in Hippocampal CA3 of Older Humans

Context: Chronic psychological distress has deleterious effects on many of the body’s physiological systems. In experimental animal models, chronic stress leads to neuroanatomic changes in the hippocampus, in particular a decrease in the length and branching of dendrites as well as a decrease in the number of dendritic spines. Objectives: To examine whether analogous distressrelated neuroanatomic changes occur in humans and whether such changes might also be related to cognitive dysfunction observed in older people who report greater psychological distress. Design: Postmortem study of brain tissues from participants of the Religious Orders Study, an ongoing population-based clinicopathological study of aging and cognition.