New research gives hope depressed - Swedish Dagbladet

In almost all our cells in the body has an internal clock that is controlled by the natural variations between night and day.

Using brain is regulated such as alertness, appetite and sleep by the light and dark cycles.

So it has been since ancient times, and in most people working the beat as it should.

– scientists have suspected – not in depressed.

Exactly how disorders of the internal clock looks like it has not been explained.

Now researchers at the University of Michigan, however, managed to prove that the interference actually occurs by studying tissue from donated brains. The researchers were also able to identify hundreds of new so-called “clock genes” that are sensitive to the circadian rhythm, or circadian rhythm.

results are presented in the scientific journal PNAS, and excite Swedish researchers.

– It’s cool results because they have enough detailed data from people in order to propose a mechanism. Most often made that kind of animal studies, says Mia Lindskog, biologist and researcher at the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute.

the American scientists compared the thousands of genes in the brains of people with and without depression. Just by looking at each of its activity cycle genes were the researchers could determine what hour of the day the person died (something they believe could be used for example in criminal investigations). However, among depressed individuals did not work at all. Where could the pattern of day, in fact, look like night.

– It’s like they lived in a different time zone is the one they died, says one of the researchers, Associate Professor Jun Li, in a comment on the study.

Jerker Hetta is a professor of Psychiatry at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. Together with his research group, he has studied clock genes in skin cells from depressed patients and found some discrepancies.

– The new results are very interesting. They also show that many genes that are not directly shown to be clock genes provides information about time and rhythm, therefore, that the “genetic clockwork”, or the molecular clock, can be read in a new way, he says.

According Mia Lindskog is disturbed sleep rhythm part of the disease and one of the best ways to determine if a person is suffering from depression.

– These findings are in line with it but with a new approach, she says.

Jerker Hetta holds :

– That there are abnormalities in the circadian rhythm in depressed patients, which is probably a crucial mechanism for the onset of depression, we have evidence, but this study provides a new perspective on this, he says.

the American scientists write that they hope their findings will lead to that you can find new ways to predict depression and develop better treatments – maybe even medicines.

– The thing about depression is that you have no idea what the underlying fault, or faults, in the brain, and therefore any new ideas on mechanisms that are treatable interesting. But when it comes to exactly how it is still quite a long way, says Mia Lindskog.

– Hopefully in the future decide which treatment is best for a particular patient by measuring disturbances in cellular genetic clock, says Jerker Hetta.

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