ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1516388
This article is part of the Research TopicCerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers in Psychiatric and Neurological DisordersView all 4 articles
Baseline CSF ferritin levels were associated with trajectories of depressive symptoms among older people without dementia
Provisionally accepted
- Wenzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, Wenzhou, China
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Background: Previous studies have suggested a link between ferritin levels in the blood and depressive symptoms. However, no prior studies have investigated the association between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) total ferritin, ferritin light chain, and ferritin heavy chain and longitudinal changes in depressive symptoms among older people without dementia. Methods: In this study, 543 older people without dementia were included, comprising 163 cognitively unimpaired (CU) participants and 380 participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A non-parametric k-means longitudinal cluster analysis was performed to identify distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms, which were measured using the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) over a period of 5 years. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between CSF total ferritin, ferritin light chain, and ferritin heavy chain levels and the trajectories of depressive symptoms, adjusting for potential covariates. Results: We identified three distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms: consistently low (trajectory 1, n = 364; mean age: 73 ± 7 years; percentage of females: 43%), moderately increasing (trajectory 2, n = 149; mean age: 72 ± 7 years; percentage of females: 43%), and rapidly increasing (trajectory 3, n = 30; mean age: 72 ± 8 years; percentage of females: 47%). Compared with trajectory 1, there was a significant relationship between membership in trajectory 3 and CSF total ferritin levels (OR = 0.04, 95% CI = 0.01 to 0.18, p < 0.001). Similarly, CSF ferritin light chain and heavy chain levels showed a similar pattern to that of CSF ferritin levels. Conclusion: Our study identified three distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms in older adults without dementia. We observed that lower CSF ferritin levels were associated with a higher likelihood of membership in the rapidly increasing symptom trajectory.
Keywords: ferritin, Iron, depressive symptoms, Cluster analysis, longitudinal study
Received: 24 Oct 2024; Accepted: 25 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Ye and Lin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yongjian Lin, lyj20241017@163.com
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