Is depression caused by an infection? Is there some infectious agent that causes depression? Is there a “bug” causing depression?

This is a significant area of research. After they discovered that bacteria in the gut seem to exert “control” over the brain, via communications channels that may include direct travels between the brain and the intestines, more research is focused on connections between pathogens and human disorders.

The most obvious “big one” to look at is depression, since approximately 10% of the US population is clinically depressed. Another is inflammation: nearly all of the ailments we previously didn’t understand, have recently been connected in some way to inflammation: cancers, neurological disorders, neuromuscular diseases, and even thought-to-be skin disorders like psoriasis.

The growth of autoimmune research supports our new understandings of inflammation, and now the study of this exciting new intestinal ecosystem is spawning theories that things like depression may actually be caused by some infectious agent, like a bacteria.

This article is interesting… seems flawed in many ways, and this is a very early stage for such research, but definitely an interesting area to be investigating.

New York Times on Depression and Infection/Inflammation here