Cytokines and depression: findings, issues, and treatment implications

Title
Cytokines and depression: findings, issues, and treatment implications
Publication Date
2011
Author(s)
Sharpley, Chris
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7922-4848
Email: csharpl3@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:csharpl3
Agnew, Linda
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2803-0995
Email: lagnew2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:lagnew2
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Place of publication
Germany
DOI
10.1515/rns.2011.030
UNE publication id
une:9891
Abstract
Depression has traditionally been classified as a disorder of the brain and CNS, with behavioural manifestations which comprise its symptomatology. That symptomatology includes a range of behaviours that also occur during certain immunological responses to pathogens, and this relationship has engendered a large research literature focussed upon the links between cell messenger cytokines and depression. However, despite many studies of those links, the precise contribution that cytokines make to the development of depression remains unclear. In order to explicate the current state of knowledge of this contribution, a review of literature reviews reported during the last five years, plus a sample of empirical studies reported during the last three years, was conducted. Results indicate that there are many plausible pathways between cytokine responses to pathogens and depression, most notably via 'sickness behaviour', which supports a model of depression as withdrawal behaviour instigated by the brain and that is based upon primitive responses to uncontrollable and life-threatening environmental challenges. However, the precise nature of the mechanisms by which various cytokines communicate with brain regions and influence functions that are trophic to depressive symptomatology remains to be explicated.
Link
Citation
Reviews in the Neurosciences, 22(3), p. 295-302
ISSN
2191-0200
0334-1763
Start page
295
End page
302

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