A PDF of the paper mentioned on this release can be found in the Academic journals section of http://press.nature.com. Press contacts for the journals are listed at the end of this release.
Warning: This document, and the Academic Journal paper to which it refers, may contain information that is price sensitive (as legally defined, for example, in the UK Criminal Justice Act 1993 Part V) with respect to publicly quoted companies. Anyone dealing in securities using information contained in this document or in advanced copies of Nature’s content may be guilty of insider trading under the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
PICTURES: While we are happy for images from Neuropsychopharmacology to be reproduced for the purposes of contemporaneous news reporting, you must also seek permission from the copyright holder (if named) or author of the research paper in question (if not).
HYPE: We take great care not to hype the papers mentioned on our press releases, but are sometimes accused of doing so. If you ever consider that a story has been hyped, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected], citing the specific example.
PLEASE CITE neuropsychopharmacology AND THE neuropsychopharmacology WEBSITE AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEM. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO www.nature.com/npp/
White matter cells linked to depression
DOI: 10.1038/npp.2011.154
Changes in a type of white matter brain cell called astrocytes play a role in depression, suggest a study published online this week in Neuropsychopharmacology. The work is the first to show a link between cellular changes in white matter and mood disorders.
Mood disorders affect over 20 million adults per year in the U.S. and can have devastating results. To investigate the biological factors behind depression, Naguib Mechawar and colleagues analyzed postmortem brain cells from depressed suicides and sudden-death individuals without a history of depression. The cell samples came from a section of the brain involved in emotion regulation and decision-making. They found that, while the gray matter astrocytes were the same across subjects, the white matter astrocytes were significantly larger and more branched in the depressed suicides than in the controls. Since astrocytes are normally involved in inflammatory responses, this study provides further evidence that chronic white matter inflammation may play a role in depression.
The authors caution that due to the small sample size of this study, further work will be needed to verify these findings.
Author contacts:
Naguib Mechawar (McGill University, Québec, Canada)
Tel: +1 514 761 6131; E-mail: [email protected]
Gustavo Turecki (McGill University, Quebec, Canada)
Tel: +1 514 761 6131 ext.3301; E-mail: [email protected]
Editorial contact:
Diane Drexler (Neuropsychopharmacology, Brentwood, TN, USA)
Tel: +1 615 324 2371; E-mail: [email protected]
Press contacts:
For media inquiries relating to embargo policy for the Journal Neuropsychopharmacology:
Neda Afsarmanesh (Nature New York)
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: [email protected]
Rachel Twinn (Nature London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail: [email protected]
About Nature Publishing Group (NPG)
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.
Focusing on the needs of scientists, Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal. In addition, for this audience, NPG publishes a range of Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals, plus a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. Online, nature.com provides over 5 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services, including Nature News and NatureJobs plus access to Nature Network and Nature Education’s Scitable.com.
Scientific American is at the heart of NPG’s newly-formed consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 15 local language editions around the world it reaches over 3 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany.
Throughout all its businesses NPG is dedicated to serving the scientific and medical communities and the wider scientifically interested general public. Part of Macmillan Publishers Limited, NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo, and offices in cities worldwide including Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Heidelberg, Basingstoke, Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul and Washington DC. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.
