Posted by dessbee on December 15, 2006, at 8:36:32
In reply to Re: Glucocorticoid receptor hypothesis of depression » dessbee, posted by Quintal on December 13, 2006, at 14:57:44
It is interesting that Glucocorticoid receptor expression/density can be manipulated by handling.
One can also speculate in the possiblity of social inheritence for depression, but I think we have to be careful blaming our parents since by the time we realize that they can be partially blamed it is too late to ask them to fix it. There is also the possibility that they will blame their parents, like a viscous cycle passed on from generation to generation - what comes around goes around.The studies on poor handling really shows how socially dependent/ineractive we are. When family/society can not provide good handling it may result in poor stress resilience.
But the etiology behind depression is probably more complicated. Many children dealing with poor handling grow up surviving it without depressions. Some children seems more vulnerable to poor handling than others so there must be genetics involved causing a dysfunction in the HPA-axis. This would really show how genetics and environment acts together causing the depression. Maybe when we understand the mechanism that can increase the Glucocorticoid receptor density, we will be able to cure depression at its core. When that day comes maybe we will stop blaming our parents ;-)
poster:dessbee
thread:713163
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061212/msgs/713893.html