Geroscience-Centric Perspective for Geriatric Psychiatry: Integrating Aging Biology With Geriatric Mental Health Research

• Published in: The American journal of geriatric psychiatry 2024-01, Vol.32 (1), p.1-16
• Main Authors: Diniz, Breno S., Seitz-Holland, Johanna, Sehgal, Raghav, Kasamoto, Jessica, Higgins-Chen, Albert T., Lenze, Eric
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Aging; Aging - physiology; Biology; Geriatric Psychiatry; Geroscience; Humans; late-life depression; Mental Health; serious mental illnesses
• ISSN: 1064-7481; 1545-7214; 1545-7214
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jagp.2023.09.014

•What is the primary question addressed by this study?This aims to summarize the current literature on the emerging field of geroscience and its relation to serious mental illnesses in older adults.•What is the main finding of this study?Serious mental illnesses have been associated with abnormalities in biological aging processes and premature aging features. Such changes put these individuals at higher risk of adverse health outcomes than the general population.•What is the meaning of the finding?The geroscience hypothesis can provide novel perspectives for developing interventions to treat and prevent SMIs and their negative effects on systemic and brain health. The geroscience hypothesis asserts that physiological aging is caused by a small number of biological pathways. Despite the explosion of geroscience research over the past couple of decades, the research on how serious mental illnesses (SMI) affects the biological aging processes is still in its infancy. In this review, we aim to provide a critical appraisal of the emerging literature focusing on how we measure biological aging systematically, and in the brain and how SMIs affect biological aging measures in older adults. We will also review recent developments in the field of cellular senescence and potential targets for interventions for SMIs in older adults, based on the geroscience hypothesis.