Placebo Response and Antidepressant Response

These findings, if replicated, may be used to characterize depressed older patients likely to respond to the pharmacologic action of antidepressants rather than the placebo response embedded in drug trials and thus improve the methodology of biomarker studies of antidepressant response. On a clinical level, depressed older patients who improve during a prolonged evaluation may be candidates for nonpharmacologic treatments because their drug response may be limited.