Female and male depression differ in genes. Free Technical Library News

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Women's and men's depression differ in genes

21.03.2018

It is known that clinical depression manifests itself differently in women and men: women suffer from it more often, but in men its symptoms are more varied and stronger. At the same time, when it comes to cellular and molecular changes in the brain during depression, they are usually studied in the male brain - although it is likely that the molecular and cellular features of the disease in women look different than in men.

Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh decided to compare the activity of genes in the male and female brains during depression. They found off-the-shelf studies that measured gene activity in the brains of both sexes and compared the "female" data with the "male" ones. All studies used samples taken postmortem from patients with clinical depression (or, more correctly, with major depressive disorder). In general, the statistics covered 50 people, almost equally men and women; samples of patients were also compared with the same number of samples taken from healthy people.

In depression, many neurons, nerve circuits, and nerve centers work differently than in a healthy brain, and depressive changes in brain function are often due to changes in the functioning of genes in nerve cells. However, many of the genes whose activity changes during depression did not match in men and women. That is, in men during depression, the activity of some genes changed, and in women, others. Moreover, even if we take some gene that starts to work differently in both the male and female brain during depression, we will see that it works differently, but in different ways. In other words, in the female brain, its activity changes in one manner, and in the male it also changes, but in a different manner, and not just in a different manner, but in the exact opposite direction than in a woman.

For example, in women, the genes that affect the activity of interneuronal contacts-synapses worked more actively during depression than usual, while in men, the same genes, on the contrary, fell asleep. On the other hand, in depressed women, the activity of immune genes decreased, while in men, immune genes, on the contrary, were noticeably activated. Moreover, such mutually opposite changes often depended on a specific area of the brain.

The researchers analyzed genetic activity in three zones associated with mood - in the amygdala, in the anterior cingulate cortex and in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - and if a woman had a gene that worked more actively in one zone, and fell asleep in another, then in men in the same brain regions and with the same gene, the picture was reversed, that is, in the first region it "fell asleep", and in the other it was activated.

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