The need to change: Is there a critical role of midlife adaptation in mental health later in life?

  1. Friederike Thams
  2. Stefanie Brassen  Is a corresponding author
  1. Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany
3 figures and 1 additional file

Figures

Well-being in older age as a proposed function of midlife adaptation to resources.
Prefrontal activation foci from studies in emotionally healthy and late-life depressed older adults.

Blue dots represent foci related to prefrontal activation differences during emotional processing found in emotionally healthy older compared to healthy younger adults. Magenta dots represent foci related to prefrontal activation differences during emotional processing found in late-life depressed compared to nondepressed older adults. Based on the focus of this review, foci falling within the boundaries of the dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (illustrated in yellow) are shown if peak coordinates were provided by the individual studies. Selected studies are summarized in Supplementary file 1.

A neurocognitive model of emotional adaptation in the second half of life.

Proposed framework on successful transition of emotion regulation from mid- to late-life. Green font indicates aspects of specific importance for successful emotional aging. Red lightning bolts mark aspects vulnerable to midlife risk factors for late-life depression (LLD) development.

Additional files

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Friederike Thams
  2. Stefanie Brassen
(2023)
The need to change: Is there a critical role of midlife adaptation in mental health later in life?
eLife 12:e82390.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82390