By IANS,
Washington : ‘Major’ depression is a severe and widespread psychiatric disorder which is on way to becoming a killer disease worldwide.
However, despite extensive investigations, the exact mechanisms that lead to major depression or MD have not been identified.
A series of studies highlight some of the current advances in biological psychiatry, neuroscience and neuroendocrinology which are shedding light on the connection between stress and depression.
The collection (11 research papers) “Stress-Induced Depression and Comorbidities: From Bench to Bedside”, represents the output of a group of international research institutions, who collaborated around the causal link between stress exposure and depression vulnerability.
“The papers for the collection… deserve timely publication as they are all reflecting forefront research in stress-induced depression spanning from basic to clinical research,” said Bernhard Baune, professor James Cook University, Australia.
“The employed animal models represent state-of-art research, which is promising for furthering the development of clinically relevant interventions in patients with stress-induced depression. All the papers are of high quality,” he added.
Within the collection, preclinical and clinical research papers present the results of an integrated experimental effort, employing methods from biological psychiatry, neuroscience and neuroendocrinology and emphasising how the link between stress and depression can be deeper, said a James Cook release.
The collection is to be published this week online in the open-access peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.