Korean Journal of Psychopharmacology  2013;24(1):5-10

Depression as an Inflammatory Disease.

Hoo Rim SONG 1 ; Young Sup WOO ; Won Myong BAHK

Affiliations

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Keywords

Depression; Inflammation; Cytokine; Glucocorticoid; Psychoneuroimmunology

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

Inflammation is an immune response engaged with the reciprocal interactions among the neural, endocrine and immune system. From this psychoneuroimmunological view, inflammation is one of important allostatic loads contributory to depression. Sickness behaviors in the inflammatory state share many parts of depressive symptoms and patients treated with cytokines for various illnesses are at increased risk of developing depression. The dysfunctions of cytokines and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis have been widely investigated to find out inflammatory responses. Inflammatory mediators such as cytokines, glucocorticoid and C-reactive protein affect the etiopathogenesis of depression via altered monoamine and glutamate neurotransmission, glucocorticoid receptor resistance and neurogenesis. Although inflammation is subtle and not easy to be detected in the wide population, it is basal pathophysiology and plays an important role at least to the vulnerable patients. From this perspectives, inflammatory markers may be useful in the diagnosis and prediction of treatment response, leading to the possibility of tailored treatments. Understanding depression as a kind of inflammatory disease would provide new opportunities for the psychiatry beyond monoamine theory.