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. 2014 Oct 31;18(1):pyu023.
doi: 10.1093/ijnp/pyu023.

Cerebrospinal fluid neuropeptide Y levels in major depression and reported childhood trauma

Laili Soleimani  1 , Maria A Oquendo  1 , Gregory M Sullivan  1 , Aleksander A Mathé  1 , J John Mann  2
Affiliations

Cerebrospinal fluid neuropeptide Y levels in major depression and reported childhood trauma

Laili Soleimani et al. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. .

Erratum in

  • Erratum.
    [No authors listed] [No authors listed] Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2016 Apr 27;19(10):pyw031. doi: 10.1093/ijnp/pyw031. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2016. PMID: 27207904 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Abstract

Background: Neuropeptide Y (NPY) may enhance resilience to chronic stress. Low brain NPY reported in major depression may normalize in response to antidepressants.

Methods: In this study, we examined the relationship of reported childhood trauma to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) NPY-like immunoreactivity (NPY-LI) in 61 medication-free major depressive disorder (MDD) patients and 20 matched healthy volunteers.

Results: Higher CSF NPY-LI was found in MDD compared to the healthy volunteer group (p = 0.01). A positive correlation of CSF NPY-LI with more adverse childhood trauma (p = 0.001) may be indicative of an intact but insufficient NPY-related stress response.

Conclusions: We hypothesize that differences in published results may be explained by the existence of two groups of MDD in terms of CSF NPY levels: MDD with low CSF NPY prior to stress or in response to stress, and those with robust NPY responses to stress. Future studies should confirm the two groups and seek the molecular mechanism for their differences.

Keywords: CSF; childhood trauma; major depression; neuropeptide Y..

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Transformed cerebrospinal fluid neuropeptide Y (tNPY-LI = Sqrt NPY-LI) and subtypes of childhood abuse in major depressive disorder (MDD) compared with healthy volunteers (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.0001).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
NPY response in major depression. High NPY levels in depressed patients may be indicative of an insufficiently resilient response to stress.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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