Washington, Sept 17 (ANI): Scientists have found molecular-level changes in the brains of women with major depressive disorder that link two hypotheses of the biological mechanisms that lead to the illness.
According to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the results also allowed them to recreate the changes in a mouse model that could enhance future research on depression.
"It seemed to us that if there were molecular changes in the depressed brain, we might be able to better identify them in samples that come from females," said senior author Etienne Sibille, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry, Pitt School of Medicine.
"Indeed, our findings give us a better understanding of the biology of this common and often debilitating psychiatric illness," she stated.
The researchers examined post-mortem brain tissue samples of 21 women with depression and 21 similar women without a history of depression.
Compared to their counterparts, the depressed women had a pattern of reduced expression of certain genes, including the one for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and of genes that are typically present in particular subtypes of brain cells, or neurons, that express the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA.)
These findings were observed in the amygdala, which is a brain region that is involved in sensing and expressing emotion.
Dr. Sibille noted that researchers have long suspected that low levels of BDNF play a role in the development of depression, and that there also is a hypothesis that reduced GABA function is a key factor.
"Our work ties these two concepts together because we first show that BDNF is indeed low in depression and second that low BDNF can influence specific GABA cells in a way that reproduces the biological profile we have observed in the depressed brain," he concluded.
The study has been published online this week in Molecular Psychiatry. (ANI)
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