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Depression: Depression: interrupted genetic seesaws in the hypothalamus

Molecular Psychiatry volume 13, page 830 (2008)Cite this article

The paper by Wang et al. reported the disturbed balances in the receptors that controlling the production of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), indicating a new avenue for systemic analyses of seesaw genes that are involved in depression.

Depression is among the most dangerous medical diseases in the current human society. Elucidating the neurobiological basis for depression is thus critical to both treatments to patients and development of new antidepressants. However the origins and symptoms of depression are heterozygous and of multilevel, including genetic susceptibility, hormone dysregulation, nutritional effects and psychological stresses. In this issue of Molecular Psychiatry, Wang et al.1 proved that the disrupted gene expression is also a complex condition within hypothalamus of depressed patients, indicating an arsenal of regulating genes in the development of depression. Differentially regulated gene expression was observed in the transcriptional upstream of CRF, attesting not only to the theory that different genes and molecules are together involved in depression, but also to the therapeutic needs of combinational treatments to mood disorders.

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References

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  1. Department of Anatomy, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China

    T-F Yuan

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  1. T-F Yuan
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Yuan, TF. Depression: Depression: interrupted genetic seesaws in the hypothalamus. Mol Psychiatry 13, 830 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2008.68

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