The study is the first to confirm that a specific protein is related to depression

Previous studies have suggested that the content of key components in the brain of depressed patients is lower than that of non depressed patients But a new study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States has come to a completely different conclusion For the first time, researchers found a key component related to depression - fibroblast growth factor 9 (FGF9) protein, whose content in the brain of depressed patients is much higher than that of non depressed patients The study is the first to confirm that a specific protein is related to depression The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan School of medicine and the Pulitzer Society for neuropsychiatric research The researchers found that FGF9 protein levels were 32% higher in depressed patients than in non depressed patients in important parts of the brain Experiments show that artificially increasing the content of FGF9 protein in rats will lead to depression like behavior, while increasing the external pressure faced by rats will lead to the increase of FGF9 protein level The team collected brain samples donated by 36 depressed patients and 56 non depressed people, the physicist's organization network reported Tuesday Through three different microarray gene expression research methods and the "quantitative PCR" experiment, the researchers observed the genetic active components in all the dead brains, especially in the big brain horse body Hippocampus is an important part of brain which is in charge of memory, learning and pressure control The hippocampus of depression patients is smaller than that of normal people All the results showed that the content of FGF9 protein in the brain of depression patients was higher Elise olbach, the first author of the paper, said their study was the first to show that FGF9 protein is related to depression, which is very active in important parts of the brain of patients with depression It is generally believed that drugs that reduce certain excess substances in the body have less side effects than drugs that increase the content of certain substances in the body Therefore, the research team claims that they can develop a better antidepressant drug, aiming to control the level of FGF9 protein in the body, and ultimately benefit tens of millions of patients with depression Related links Depression is a common mental disease in modern people Most patients go to the hospital only when they have depression and depression, and they often rely on the doctor's subjective diagnosis according to the patients' symptoms and their own experience Japanese researchers have found that depression can be diagnosed by testing a blood indicator A team led by Professor YAMAWA adult and associate professor Mori Xinfan of Graduate School of Hiroshima University reported that the methylation level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene in blood can be used as an indicator for diagnosing depression The new findings will help to develop a scientific and objective diagnosis of depression, such as blood glucose or blood pressure, and develop therapeutic drugs Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is an indispensable nutrient for the growth of nerve cells, which is closely related to brain functions such as memory, learning and neural development, and mainly located in the central nervous system When the mental state is tense, the amount and function of brain-derived neurotrophic factors will be reduced, so it is considered to be closely related to the onset of depression Previous animal experiments have also shown that brain-derived neurotrophic factors are closely related to depression, but there is no correlation between the concentration of brain-derived neurotrophic factors in the blood and depression Japanese researchers published a paper on the electronic edition of a new issue of the comprehensive volume of Public Library of Science in the United States, saying that they got the blood of 20 patients with depression and 18 healthy people, analyzed the methylation degree of genes synthesizing brain-derived neurotrophic factors in the blood, and found the unique pattern of patients with depression They found a significant difference in 29 of the 35 possible methylation sites between depressed and normal people Methylation refers to the process of introducing methyl into organic molecules, which generally uses methyl to replace hydrogen atoms In biological systems, methylation is catalyzed by enzymes, which can involve gene expression regulation, protein function metabolism and RNA metabolism The researchers said it would take 15000 yen (195 US dollars) to diagnose depression by using methylation level as an indicator, and the results could be obtained within two days "In the future, we will continue to collect data, investigate the relationship between the administration of antidepressants, changes in symptoms and changes in the degree of methylation, and establish an objective method for diagnosing depression," YAMAWA said