Depression and Hippocampal Damage: Which Comes First?

Childhood stress, especially loss of a parent, increases the risk for later depression, and both stress and depression are associated with small hippocampi. To learn more about these associations, researchers assessed hippocampal size and determined early-life adversities in 29 medication-free adolescents (age range, 12–20) with major depression (depressed group), 22 adolescents without psychiatric histories but with at least one biological parent with a history of major depression (high-risk group), and 32 controls with no personal or family psychiatric history. Early-life adversities lasted at least 6 months and occurred before age 11 (separation or loss; life-threatening illness or injury; neglect; emotional, physical, or sexual abuse or…