Depression Leads to Heart Disease and Vice Versa: Researcher

A researcher has identified factors in the brain that distinguish susceptibility and resiliency to depression and heart disease comorbidity.

A researcher has identified factors in the brain that distinguish susceptibility and resiliency to depression and heart disease comorbidity. The researchers is from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The finding would be a major advance in predicting, preventing and treating these disorders.

Depression � A Holistic Approach-Signs, Symptoms and Treatment
Depression is a common disorder and many worldwide suffer from depression. Early recognition of symptoms and signs of depression can help in taking a holistic approach to the management of depression.

Depression is the leading cause of disability with more than 350 million people globally affected by this disease.

In addition to debilitating consequences on mental health, depression predisposes an individual to physiological disease such as heart disease, and conversely heart disease increases the risk of depression.

According to the World Health Organization by the year 2020 heart disease and depression will be the number one and number two leading causes of disability in developed countries. While the co-occurrence of these disorders is well recognized, an understanding of the underlying mechanisms that lead to this relationship are lacking.

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Depression is one of the most common mental disorders affecting approximately 340 million people in the world. No one is immune from depression - it occurs in people of all social classes, all countries and all cultural settings.

Dr. Susan K. Wood, a Research Associate at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, investigates brain-related biomarkers for depression-heart disease comorbidity.

She uses a rodent model of social stress likened to bullying in people that she has found to produce depressive-like behaviors and dysfunctional cardiovascular changes in a susceptible subset of rodents.

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Adolescent depression is an ailment that occurs during the teenage characterized by persistent melancholy, disappointment and loss of self-esteem.

Her previous work highlighted a role for the stress-related neurohormone corticotropin-releasing factor in rendering an individual vulnerable to stress-induced depression and heart disease. Intrigued by what other biomarkers may be distinct her latest study is the first to identify gene and protein expression differences in the brains of rodents that are either vulnerable or resilient to developing stress-induced depressive-like behaviors and cardiovascular dysfunction.

The study, conducted in male rats, compared expression of 88 genes involved in signaling within the brain between socially stressed and non-stressed rats.

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Depression occurs due to alterations in the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain.

It revealed more than 35 genes in stressed rats that had altered expression compared with non-stressed controls. Many of the genes that were differentially expressed were related to inflammation.

Follow-up studies measuring protein levels revealed that Interleukin-1beta and Monocyte chemotactic protein-1, inflammatory markers known to play a role in depression and heart disease, were suppressed in the brains of the resilient subset of rats and Interleukin-1beta was increased in the vulnerable group.

Dr. Wood measured the gene and protein levels under resting conditions 24 hours after just 5 daily 30-minute exposures to social stress.

She is continuing these studies as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine with the hope that these findings will uncover new targets to treat the mind and body.

Her findings will be presented during Experimental Biology 2013 in Boston, MA.

Source-ANI