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Reframing late life depression: from brain pathology to plasticity – Nature Mental Health

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Mathieu Vandenbulcke
reframing-late-life-depression:-from-brain-pathology-to-plasticity-–-nature-mental-health

⏱ 2 min read

Late-life depression is often viewed as a consequence of neurodegeneration or vascular brain injury, leading to therapeutic pessimism. We propose a recovery-oriented model that emphasizes brain plasticity and resilience, integrating biological, psychological and social factors to improve treatment and outcomes in older adults.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the KU Leuven Sequoia Fund for Mental Health and The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO grant G035926N). The authors used ChatGPT (GPT-4, OpenAI; accessed August 2025) for language refinement. All authors reviewed, revised and take full responsibility for the content.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. KU Leuven, Leuven Brain Institute, Department of Neurosciences, Neuropsychiatry, Leuven, Belgium

    Mathieu Vandenbulcke, Thomas Vande Casteele, Filip Bouckaert & Louise Emsell

  2. Geriatric Psychiatry, University Psychiatric Center KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Mathieu Vandenbulcke, Thomas Vande Casteele, Filip Bouckaert & Louise Emsell

  3. The Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Warren D. Taylor

Authors

  1. Mathieu Vandenbulcke
  2. Thomas Vande Casteele
  3. Filip Bouckaert
  4. Warren D. Taylor
  5. Louise Emsell

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mathieu Vandenbulcke.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Vandenbulcke, M., Vande Casteele, T., Bouckaert, F. et al. Reframing late life depression: from brain pathology to plasticity. Nat. Mental Health (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00692-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00692-8

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