Key result
Baseline C-reactive protein levels did not significantly predict future severity of depression, anxiety, anhedonia, or suicidality in adolescents over a 1.5-year follow-up.
Why the study?
Elevated CRP is associated with adult depression, but cross-sectional adolescent studies showed no mood association, leaving it unknown whether CRP predicts future depression onset or progression.
Does baseline C-reactive protein level predict future onset or progression of depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents?
Cohort (n=53)
Does baseline C-reactive protein level predict future onset or progression of depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents?
Baseline C-reactive protein levels do not predict future depression or anxiety symptom severity in adolescents, suggesting CRP may not be a useful biomarker for adolescent depression.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
CRP levels should not inform adolescent depression risk assessment; leaves open inflammation's prospective role in mood disorders.
Introduction Neuroinflammatory processes have been extensively implicated in the underlying neurobiology of numerous neuropsychiatric disorders. Elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), an indicator of non-specific inflammation commonly utilized in clinical practice, has been associated with depression in adults. In adolescents, our group previously found CRP to be associated with altered neural reward function but not with mood and anxiety symptoms assessed cross-sectionally. We hypothesized that the distinct CRP findings in adolescent vs. adult depression may be due to chronicity, with neuroinflammatory effects on psychiatric disorders gradually accumulating over time. Here, we conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate if CRP levels predicted future onset or progression of depression in adolescents. Methods Participants were 53 adolescents (ages 14.74 ± 1.92, 35 female), 40 with psychiatric symptoms and 13 healthy controls. At baseline, participants completed semi-structured diagnostic evaluations; dimensional assessments for anxiety, depression, anhedonia, and suicidality severity; and bloodwork to quantify CRP levels. Clinical assessments were repeated at longitudinal follow-up after approximately 1.5 years. Spearman’s correlation between CRP levels and follow-up symptom severity were controlled for BMI, age, sex, and follow-up interval and considered significant at the two-tailed, Bonferroni-adjusted p < 0.05 level. Results After correction for multiple comparisons, no relationships were identified between baseline CRP levels and follow-up symptom severity. Conclusion CRP levels were not significantly associated with future psychiatric symptoms in adolescents in this preliminary analysis. This may suggest that CRP is not a useful biomarker for adolescent depression and anxiety. However, future longitudinal studies with larger sample sizes and incorporating additional indicators of neuroinflammation are needed.
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Schwartz et al. (2023) conducted a cohort in Depression and anxiety (n=53). C-reactive protein (CRP) levels was evaluated on Follow-up psychiatric symptom severity (anhedonia, depression, anxiety, suicidality) (p=>0.05). Baseline C-reactive protein levels did not significantly predict future severity of depression, anxiety, anhedonia, or suicidality in adolescents over a 1.5-year follow-up.
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