March 2, 2012

Down in the dumps? Blame your Immune System!


Over the past few years, researchers have discovered evidence suggesting that the immune system is the source of depression.  While conducting studies, researchers saw that people with depression tend to have higher levels of inflammation than people without depression.  As a result, researchers have concluded that depression is an evolutionary adaptation.  They’ve concluded that evolution and genetics have bound together depressive symptoms and physiological responses.  This link allowed early humans to be able to fight infection, the major cause of death in humans' early history.  This discovery also helps explain whey stress is a risk factor for depression.  When a person receives a wound, the person becomes stressed in order to signal to the immune system that it should anticipate an infection resulting from the wound.  If the person didn’t become stressed, the immune system would not be as prepared for infection.

This new discovery is very interesting because it could potentially lead to further research and discoveries about depression and its causes.  Furthermore, with this information, scientists may be able to better treat people with depression.  Instead of relying solely on antidepressants, treatments that are normally used to treat inflammation may be able to be used.  It clear that depression will not every be completely eliminated; however, this new research shows that depression can actually have some benefits to humans.

7 comments:

chellemohasin said...

I never thought that depression could be an actual evolutionary adaption. Do you think that before this adaption, there was no such thing as sadness? That'd be nice.

enkaysaini said...

^life without sadness would be nice. but yeah its crazy how people with depression tend to have higher levels of inflammation.

acavz said...

wow i never knew about depression like this, and nice pictures!

Shan said...

This is cool but confusing.. I get papercuts that I don't even notice until I wash my hands. So are you saying that because I noticed it it's getting healed faster?

Jenai said...

I would think the brain had something to do with emotion since it does control all emotion, but to ear if comes from the immune system also is very interesting.

vas said...

If we've adapted depression, i'd hate to see how much worse it could get in the future!

Fariha said...

I could see how this works. After all who feels happy when their sick..