Warren Taylor, MD, MHSc

James G. Blakemore Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Vice-Chair for Research
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Warren Taylor joined the Vanderbilt Department of Psychiatry and the Vanderbilt Center for Cognitive Medicine in 2012. He currently has a joint appointment between Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the Nashville VA Hospital in the VA Tennessee Valley Health System. While he currently serves the Department as the Vice-Chair for research, his past administrative roles include serving as the Division Director of the both the Divisions of General Psychiatry and Geriatric Psychiatry as well as Program Director for the Vanderbilt Fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry. He mentors a wide range of individuals developing research careers focusing on depression, aging, and mental health. He has served on numerous scientific organization committees and NIH grant review committees.

Clinical Interests

Dr. Taylor is an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of older adults with depressive disorders. He provides outpatient care of depressed elders and directs a large research group focused on this population.

Research Information

Dr. Taylor studies the neurobiology of depression in older adults, also called late-life depression. This work focuses on biological factors contributing to the occurrence, phenomenology, and outcomes of depression in older adults, with a particular focus on pathological brain aging. His work uses a variety of approaches including neuroimaging, ecological, neurocognitive, genetic, and experimental therapeutic approaches to advance our understanding of the pathogenesis of depression. These approaches are often integrated in clinical trials, including work with novel or repurposed drugs, designed to probe the biological substrates of the antidepressant response. His work has elucidated structural and functional neuroimaging findings that are related to depression and treatment outcomes, particularly the influence of vascular disease on depression. Current work in Dr. Taylor's lab focuses on mechanistic clinical trials that can inform us of contributors to depression and investigate new therapeutic approaches, as well as longitudinal studies examining factors influencing depression recurrence and cognitive decline.


Selected Publications:

  1. Taylor WD, Steffens DC, MacFall JR, McQuoid DR, Payne ME, Provenzale JM, Krishnan KRR. White matter hyperintensity progression and late-life depression outcomes. Archives of General Psychiatry. 60: 1090-1096, 2003.
  2. Taylor WD, Steffens DC, Payne ME, MacFall JR, Marchuk DA, Svenson IK, Krishnan KRR. Influence of serotonin transporter promoter region polymorphisms on hippocampal volumes in late-life depression. Archives of General Psychiatry. 62: 537-544, 2005.
  3. Bae JN, MacFall JR, Krishnan KR, Payne ME, Steffens DC, Taylor WD. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex white matter alterations in late-life depression. Biological Psychiatry, 60: 1356-1363, 2006.
  4. Taylor WD, Aizenstein HJ, Alexopoulos GS. The Vascular Depression hypothesis: Mechanisms linking vascular disease with depression. Molecular Psychiatry. 18: 963-974, 2013. PMCID: PMC3674224
    Taylor WD. Clinical practice: Depression in the elderly. New England Journal of Medicine. 371:1228-1236, 2014.
  5. Deng Y, McQuoid DR, Potter GG, Steffens DC, Albert K, Riddle M, Beyer JL, Taylor WD. Predictors of Recurrence in Remitted Late-Life Depression. Depression and Anxiety. 35: 658-667, 2018. PMCID: PMC6035781
  6. Gandelman JA, Albert K, Boyd BD, Park JW, Riddle M, Woodward ND, Kang H, Landman BA, Taylor WD. Intrinsic functional networks influence clinical symptoms and cognition in late life depression. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. 4: 160-170, 2019. PMCID: PMC6368882.
  7. Christman S, Bermudez C, Hao L, Landman BA, Boyd B, Albert K, Woodward N, Shokouhi S, Vega J, Andrews P, Taylor WD. Accelerated brain aging predicts impaired cognitive performance and greater disability in geriatric but not midlife adult depression. Translational Psychiatry. 10:317, 2020. PMCID: PMC7501280
  8. Taylor WD, Zald DH, Felger JC, Christman S, Claassen DO, Horga G, Miller JM, Gifford K, Rogers B, Szymkowicz SM, Rutherford BR. Influences of dopaminergic system dysfunction on late-life depression. Molecular Psychiatry. 27: 180-191, 2022. PMCID: PMC8850529
  9. Szymkowicz SM, Gerlach AR, Homiack D, Taylor WD. Biological factors influencing depression in later life: Role of aging processes and treatment implications. Translational Psychiatry. 13:160, 2023. PMCID: PMC10169845.
  10. Andrews P, Vega J, Szymkowicz SM, Newhouse P, Tyndale R, Elson D, Kang H, Siddiqi S, Tyner E, Mather K, Gunning F, Taylor WD. Effects of Open-Label Transdermal Nicotine Antidepressant Augmentation on Affective Symptoms and Executive Function in Late-Life Depression. Journal of Affective Disorders. 362: 416-424, 2024.