Pathogen–Host Defense in the Evolution of Depression: Insights into Epidemiology, Genetics, Bioregional Differences and Female Preponderance

Abstract

Significant attention has been paid to the potential adaptive value of depression as it relates to interactions with people in the social world. However, in this review, we outline the rationale of why certain features of depression including its environmental and genetic risk factors, its association with the acute phase response and its age of onset and female preponderance appear to have evolved from human interactions with pathogens in the microbial world. Approaching the relationship between inflammation and depression from this evolutionary perspective yields a number of insights that may reveal important clues regarding the origin and epidemiology of the disorder as well as the persistence of its risk alleles in the modern human genome.

Male infants and birth complications are associated with increased incidence of postnatal depression

“…Major depressive disorder is increasingly accepted as being a neuroprogressive and inflammatory process (Rahola 2012), with a growing literature linking both psychosocial and genetic risk factors for depression to innate immune inflammatory responses (Cole et al, 2007;Cole 2008;Cole 2009;Slavich et al, 2010a;Slavich et al, 2010b;Raison and Miller, 2013;Raison and Miller, 2017). A link further supported by the findings that most antidepressant drugs have anti-inflammatory effects (Maes et al, 2009), that depressive symptoms positively correlate with inflammatory markers and pathogen load in a high pathogen-bearing population (Stieglitz et al, 2015), and inflammation precedes rather than follows emotional distress (Das, 2016).…”

An examination of changes in maternal neuroimmune function during pregnancy and the postpartum period

“…It is also known that immune dysregulation is often linked to the onset of certain mental health disorders, including depression and anxiety (Raison and Miller, 2017; Remus and Dantzer, 2016). The peripartum period is a critical time-point in a woman’s life that is associated with an increased risk of certain mental health disorders, most notably peripartum anxiety and depression, which have also been concurrently linked with altered cytokine production in the periphery (Osborne and Monk, 2013).…”

Mental health is biological health: Why tackling “diseases of the mind” is an imperative for biological anthropology in the 21st century

“…Kinney and Tanaka () proposed that depressive symptoms conserve energy to combat infection, discourage activities that promote transmission of infection, signal others to avoid contact, reduce the risk of conflict and therefore injuries, and reduce appetite to avoid exposure to pathogens (see also Anders, Tanaka, & Kinney, ). Raison and Miller () propose similar ideas, adding that, ancestrally, social conflicts were good predictors of physical injury, and therefore preemptively activated the immune system (see also Raison, Capuron, & Miller, ; Raison & Miller, ). The latter idea is extensively developed by Slavich and Irwin () in their “social signal transduction” theory of depression, which posits that social threat and adversity upregulates components of the immune system, generating sickness behaviors and depression.…”

“…The latter idea is extensively developed by Slavich and Irwin () in their “social signal transduction” theory of depression, which posits that social threat and adversity upregulates components of the immune system, generating sickness behaviors and depression. It has even been proposed that depression might be an exaptation of sickness behavior (Andrews & Durisko, ; Raison & Miller, ).…”