biomarker for depression Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Inflammation May Be the Link Between Chronic Pain and Depression

The AHA! Team — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 05:18:17 +0000

Yale School of Medicine via Newswise – A new study published in Science Advances shows that a person’s risk of depression increases alongside the number of places in the body in which they experience pain. Chronic pain—or pain that lasts at least three months—is closely intertwined with depression. Individuals living with pain’s persistent symptoms may be up to four times more likely to experience depression, research shows. Almost 30% of people worldwide suffer from a chronic pain condition such as low back pain and migraines, and one in three of these patients also report co-existing pain conditions. A new study published in Science Advances Now, a new study published in Science Advances shows that a person’s risk of depression increases alongside the number of places in the body in which they experience pain. Furthermore, inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (a protein produced by the liver in response to inflammation) help explain the association between pain and depression. This finding suggests that the mechanisms underlying chronic pain and depression may be driven by systemic inflammation, the researchers say. “Pain isn’t only physical,” says Dustin Scheinost, PhD, associate professor of radiology and biomedical imaging at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), and the study’s principal investigator. “Our study adds to the evidence that physical conditions can have mental health consequences.” Inflammatory markers may explain depression risk The Yale team analyzed data from the UK Biobank—a long-term study in the United Kingdom that has collected extensive health information from more than 400,000 individuals over 14 years. UK Biobank participants reported whether they were experiencing pain that interfered with daily life and identified the sites and duration of their pain. The categories for pain sites included head, face, neck, back, stomach, hip, knee, and general pain. The dataset also included if and when the participants were diagnosed with depression. The researchers analyzed data from participants with both chronic and acute (lasting less than three months) pain. They found that both types of pain from all body sites were associated with depression, and that chronic pain was more strongly associated than acute pain. Furthermore, having chronic pain in multiple parts of the body was linked to a greater risk of depression than having pain at a single site. The UK Biobank also included assessments of participants’ blood. The Yale researchers used these data to look for inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive proteins, platelets, and white blood cells. They found that several of these inflammatory markers helped explain the relationship between pain and depression—and C-reactive proteins in particular were the strongest variable. “This gives us some preliminary evidence about the inflammatory mechanisms underlying the association between pain and depression,” says Rongtao Jiang, PhD, postdoctoral associate at YSM and the study’s first author. Illuminating the brain-body connection The study adds to growing evidence highlighting the significance of the brain-body connection, the authors say. “We often think of brain health or mental health as separate from cardiac health or liver health, for instance,” says Scheinost. “But all of these body systems influence each other.” Further research into the underlying drivers of pain and depression could help scientists develop new intervention strategies, he adds. Most of the participants studied were of European ancestry. In future studies, Jiang says he is interested in studying whether these findings also apply to individuals of other ethnicities. Scheinost’s team is also studying the association between chronic pain and opioid use disorder. “This is another disorder that goes hand-in-hand with the experience of chronic pain,” Scheinost says. To read the original article click here.

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Can AI Recognize the Signs of Depression in People’s Voices?

The AHA! Team — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 05:07:05 +0000

Dr. Chinta Sidharthan via News-Medical – A machine learning tool successfully identified vocal markers of depression in over 70% of cases within 25 seconds, highlighting its potential for improving mental health screening in primary care and virtual healthcare settings. In a recent article in The Annals of Family Medicine, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of a machine learning (ML) tool for detecting vocal signs linked to severe or moderate depression. The tool successfully detected vocal markers of depression in just 25 seconds, correctly identifying cases of depression in more than 70% of samples, highlighting its utility for mental health screening. Background Depression is a major health issue, affecting about 18 million Americans annually, with nearly 30% experiencing it at some point in their lives. Despite guidelines recommending universal screening, depression screening in primary care remains very low (

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Researchers Identify Biomarker for Depression, Antidepressant Response

AHA Publisher — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 08:00:45 +0000

University of Illinois Chicago via Newswise – Researchers are one step closer to developing a blood test that provides a simple biochemical hallmark for depression and reveals the efficacy of drug therapy in individual patients. Published in a new proof of concept study, researchers led by Mark Rasenick, University of Illinois Chicago distinguished professor of physiology and biophysics and psychiatry, have identified a biomarker in human platelets that tracks the extent of depression. The research builds off of previous studies by several investigators that have shown in humans and animal models that depression is consistent with decreased adenylyl cyclase — a small molecule inside the cell that is made in response to neurotransmitters such as serotonin and epinephrine. “When you are depressed, adenylyl cyclase is low. The reason adenylyl cyclase is attenuated is that the intermediary protein that allows the neurotransmitter to make the adenylyl cyclase, Gs alpha, is stuck in a cholesterol-rich matrix of the membrane — a lipid raft – where they don’t work very well,” Rasenick said. The new study, “A Novel Peripheral Biomarker for Depression and Antidepressant Response,” published in Molecular Psychiatry, has identified the cellular biomarker for translocation of Gs alpha from lipid rafts. The biomarker can be identified through a blood test. “What we have developed is a test that can not only indicate the presence of depression but it can also indicate therapeutic response with a single biomarker, and that is something that has not existed to date,” said Rasenick, who is also a research career scientist at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. The researchers hypothesize they will be able to use this blood test to determine if antidepressant therapies are working, perhaps as soon as one week after beginning treatment. Previous research has shown that when patients showed improvement in their depression symptoms, the Gs alpha was out of the lipid raft. However, in patients who took antidepressants but showed no improvement in their symptoms, the Gs alpha was still stuck in the raft — meaning simply having antidepressants in the bloodstream was not good enough to improve symptoms. A blood test may be able to show whether or not the Gs alpha was out of the lipid raft after one week. “Because platelets turn over in one week, you would see a change in people who were going to get better. You’d be able to see the biomarker that should presage successful treatment,” Rasenick said. Currently, patients and their physicians have to wait several weeks, sometimes months, to determine if antidepressants are working, and when it is determined they aren’t working, different therapies are tried. “About 30% of people don’t get better — their depression doesn’t resolve. Perhaps, failure begets failure and both doctors and patients make the assumption that nothing is going to work,” Rasenick said. “Most depression is diagnosed in primary care doctor’s offices where they don’t have sophisticated screening. With this test, a doctor could say, ‘Gee, they look like they are depressed, but their blood doesn’t tell us they are. So, maybe we need to re-examine this.’” To read the original article click here.

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