The causes of depression remain mysterious. And yet, many scientists are looking for its origin, in vain. Some have even explored the trail of a inflammation of the brain.
A hypothesis already studied for fifty years, but so far, researchers did not have real evidence linking depression and inflammation.
A team of scientists from the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto (Canada), led by Jeffrey Meyer, succeeded in demonstrating in a study that a specific marker of neuroinflammation, known as TSPO Vt, was higher in people with depression.
Brain inflammation 30% higher in people with depression
They thus studied the distribution of a protein linked to inflammation in the brains of 20 depressive patients and 20 controls, thanks to the
PET scan
, a medical imaging technique. The first group suffered from a second major depressive episode and had not taken medication for 6 weeks.
After comparing the results obtained with those of the 20 control individuals, the researchers found that people with depression had an average 30% higher inflammation in three regions of the brain: the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula. .
Scientists have also found a connection between the extent of inflammation and the severity of depression. Their results were published in the JAMA Psychiatry journal.
Depression: towards new anti-inflammatory treatments
“If inflammatory mechanisms are associated with the development of this disease, this suggests that the use of anti-inflammatory agents could represent an interesting new therapeutic approach”, underlines Antoine Pelissolo, one of the authors of the study.
“This is a very interesting lead. But it needs to be confirmed, because this research was carried out on a very limited cohort of patients. Nevertheless, if this theory is validated, it will offer us biological markers of the disease. , very useful for diagnosis, but also new means of treatment, which we desperately need “, continues Alexandre Dayer, co-author of the study.
Further work should be undertaken to determine whether drugs that reduce inflammation in the brain could be effective in treating severe depression.
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– Repeated depressions have a toxic effect on the brain
