How Stress and Depression Can Shrink the Brain

Aug. 12, 2012 —

Science Daily/Yale University

Major depression or chronic stress can cause the loss of brain volume, a condition that contributes to both emotional and cognitive impairment. Now a team of researchers led by Yale scientists has discovered one reason why this occurs -- a single genetic switch that triggers loss of brain connections in humans and depression in animal models.

"We wanted to test the idea that stress causes a loss of brain synapses in humans," said senior author Ronald Duman, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and professor of neurobiology and of pharmacology. "We show that circuits normally involved in emotion, as well as cognition, are disrupted when this single transcription factor is activated."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120812151659.htm