Inability of a brain region to adapt to stress may lead to depression

Now, a study led by a team of researchers at Emory University in the United States shows that people with depression, unlike individuals without the condition, are unable to produce an adaptive decrease in mPFC glutamate levels in response to experiencing a recent increase in everyday stress.Furthermore, the extent to which an individual with depression lacked such an adaptive response predicted their levels of anhedonia in daily life.“We were able to show how a neural response to stress is meaningfully related to what people experience in their daily lives,” says Dr. Jessica Cooper, the study’s first author. The authors suggest that the absence of an adaptive change in mPFC glutamate levels may play a role in the development of stress-related mental health conditions, such as depression.To establish whether the mPFC glutamate response during the acute stress test was associated with daily functioning, the researchers surveyed the participants with depression every other day after the stress test for 4 weeks.The surveys assessed the participant’s optimism or pessimism regarding their life activities and the actual outcomes of these activities.