Loss of interest, joylessness, lack of drive and increased fatigability—all these complaints are among the main symptoms of depression, a mental illness affecting an estimated 5% of the population in Germany. Pathophysiological features of depressive disorders often include low-grade inflammation and elevated glucocorticoid output. In a new study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, researchers from the Technische Universität Dresden, the University of Zurich, and the Max Planck Institutes for the Science of Light and the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin Erlangen establish for the first time a link between depressive disorders and mechanical changes in blood cells. To do so, the researchers performed a cross-sectional case-control study using image-based morpho- rheological characterization of unmanipulated blood samples facilitating real-time deformability cytometry (RT-DC).
Depressive disorders can lead to changes in immune cells
Loss of interest, joylessness, lack of drive and increased fatigability—all these complaints are among the main symptoms of depression, a mental illness affecting an estimated 5% of the population in Germany. Pathophysiological features of depressive disorders often include low-grade inflammation and elevated glucocorticoid output. In a new study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, researchers from the Technische Universität Dresden, the University of Zurich, and the Max Planck Institutes for the Science of Light and the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin Erlangen establish for the first time a link between depressive disorders and mechanical changes in blood cells. To do so, the researchers performed a cross-sectional case-control study using image-based morpho- rheological characterization of unmanipulated blood samples facilitating real-time deformability cytometry (RT-DC).