Loading...
Bidirectional communication occurs between the brain and the immune system, and proinflammatory cytokines can induce “sickness behavior” in animals and depressive symptoms in humans. Two research groups have further investigated these links.
Researchers in the Netherlands used polymerase chain reaction to examine gene expression in the monocytes of 42 bipolar patients, 54 children of bipolar patients from another study (16 children had a mood disorder or later developed one), 25 healthy adults, and 70 healthy children. A signature of 19 overexpressed genes involved in inflammation, trafficking, cellular survival, and the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway was identified in bipolar patients (i.e., the expression of the genes correlated …