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Gray V, Douglas KM, Porter RJ. Emotion processing in depression and anxiety disorders in older adults: systematic review. BJPsych Open. 2020;7(1):e7doi: 10.1192/bjo.2020.143.
Gray, V., Douglas, K. M., & Porter, R. J. (2020). Emotion processing in depression and anxiety disorders in older adults: systematic review. BJPsych open, 7(1), e7. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2020.143
Gray, Vanessa, et al. "Emotion processing in depression and anxiety disorders in older adults: systematic review." BJPsych open vol. 7,1 (2020): e7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2020.143
Gray V, Douglas KM, Porter RJ. Emotion processing in depression and anxiety disorders in older adults: systematic review. BJPsych Open. 2020 Dec 03;7(1):e7. doi: 10.1192/bjo.2020.143. PMID: 33267933; PMCID: PMC7791559.
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BJPsych Open. 2020 Dec 03;7(1):e7. doi: 10.1192/bjo.2020.143.

Emotion processing in depression and anxiety disorders in older adults: systematic review.

BJPsych open

Vanessa Gray, Katie M Douglas, Richard J Porter

Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand.
  2. Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago; and Canterbury District Health Board, Christchurch, New Zealand.

PMID: 33267933 PMCID: PMC7791559 DOI: 10.1192/bjo.2020.143

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Emotional cognition and effective interpretation of affective information is an important factor in social interactions and everyday functioning, and difficulties in these areas may contribute to aetiology and maintenance of mental health conditions. In younger people with depression and anxiety, research suggests significant alterations in behavioural and brain activation aspects of emotion processing, with a tendency to appraise neutral stimuli as negative and attend preferentially to negative stimuli. However, in ageing, research suggests that emotion processing becomes subject to a 'positivity effect', whereby older people attend more to positive than negative stimuli.

AIMS: This review examines data from studies of emotion processing in Late-Life Depression and Late-Life Anxiety to attempt to understand the significance of emotion processing variations in these conditions, and their interaction with changes in emotion processing that occur with ageing.

METHOD: We conducted a systematic review following PRISMA guidelines. Articles that used an emotion-based processing task, examined older persons with depression or an anxiety disorder and included a healthy control group were included.

RESULTS: In Late-Life Depression, there is little consistent behavioural evidence of impaired emotion processing, but there is evidence of altered brain circuitry during these processes. In Late-Life Anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress disorder, there is evidence of interference with processing of negative or threat-related words.

CONCLUSIONS: How these findings fit with the positivity bias of ageing is not clear. Future research is required in larger groups, further examining the interaction between illness and age and the significance of age at disease onset.

Keywords: Emotion processing; cognition; late-life anxiety; late-life depression; older adults

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