Chronic Stress May Help Cause Depression

Apocalypse Suicide Page
Good Mood
Living with Depression
Mental Health Recovery
NIMH
SHOCKED! ECT

HealthyPlace.com Radio
Depression Support Groups

Books on Depression
Conference Transcripts
Depression Videos
Diaries - Journals
Disorders Definitions
Mental Health News
Online Depression Tests
Psychiatric Medications
Resources
Site Map

Email
ICQ
Instant Messenger

Visit and Post

Abuse
ADD/ADHD
Addictions
Anxiety-Panic
Bipolar
Eating Disorders
Personality Disorders
Self-Injury

send this page to a friend

Chronic Stress May Help Cause Depression

(April 17, 2006) - Is the anxiety that often accompanies chronic depression a cause or effect of the illness?

HealthyPlace.com Info

Depression is a serious illness. Discover the importance of getting treatment for depression and the consequences if you don't.

This new section of our site includes an antidepressant quiz to help you determine if you're a candidate for taking an antidepressant along with personal stories of recovering from major depression.

It's a longstanding question among experts, but new research in mice suggests that chronic stress may be a trigger -- not a symptom of -- depression.

The findings could also help improve treatments for the disorder, says a research team from Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, in Boston.

It was already known that people with depression tended to have higher levels of the human stress hormone cortisol, but it wasn't clear whether this was a cause or effect of depression. The new mouse study suggests that long-term exposure to cortisol may actually contribute to depression.

For this study, the researchers exposed mice to acute (24 hours) and chronic (17 to 18 days) doses of the rodent stress hormone corticosterone. The hormone was put in the animals' drinking water so that the stress of injections would not cloud the results.

Compared to the mice with short-term exposure, the mice with chronic exposure took much longer to emerge from a small dark compartment into a brightly lit open field. This is a common behavioral test of anxiety in animals. The results suggest that the mice with chronic exposure were more fearful and less willing to explore their new environment.

advertisement

The researchers also found that mice with chronic exposure showed dulled reactions to being startled, another indication that their nervous system was overwhelmed.

The findings appear in the April issue of the journal Behavioral Neuroscience.

Source: HealthDay News

Last updated: 04/066

Chronic Stress May Help Cause Depression

HealthyPlace.com Info

Related Stories