Fifteen million Americans are affected every year by major depression, and various factors are involved.
Psychology professor Dr. Michael Hennessy and his students are studying connections between depression and anti-inflammatory medications by observing the effects of separation in their research. Dr. Hennessy is working from the hypothesis "When the rodents are given an anti-inflammatory, can it block the long-term effect of separation on inflammatory-induced depressive-like behavior?"
When Dr. Hennessy and his students first separated the rodents from their mothers, they observed both hormonal stress responses and inflammatory-mediated depressive-like behaviors. The systemic inflammatory response is separated into two components: (1) physiological components including fever and changes in liver proteins; and (2) behavioral components including lower activity levels, reduced feeding, lessened social behavior, hunched posture, piloerection, and reduced sleepiness.
After the initial separations were performed, Dr. Hennessy observed a faster, greater fever response and an increase in depressive-like behavior during each subsequent separation.
To test the hypothesis, Dr. Hennessy and his students administered Naproxen to a group of rodents before performing the first separations. This resulted in a reduction both in fever and depressive-like behaviors.
Dr. Hennessy says that research such as this may be useful to pharmaceutical companies, and may also provide a better understanding of how anti-depressant medicines work in the body.
