Researchers have come a long way in understanding the link between acute inflammation and treatment-resistant depression, but more work needs to be done, according to Mark Hyman Rapaport, MD.
"Inflammation has been a hot topic in the past decade, both because of its impact in medical disorders and in psychiatric disorders," Rapaport, CEO of the Huntsman Mental Health Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah, said during an annual psychopharmacology update held by the Nevada Psychiatric Association. "We run into difficulty with chronic inflammation, which we see with rheumatic disorders, and when we think of metabolic syndrome and obesity."
The immune system helps to control energy regulation and neuroendocrine function in acute inflammation and chronic inflammatory diseases. "We see a variety of effects on the central nervous system or liver function or on homeostasis of the body," said Rapaport, who also chairs the department of psychiatry at the University of Utah, also in Salt Lake City. "These are all normal and necessary to channel energy to the immune system in order to fight what's necessary in acute inflammatory response."
A chronic state of inflammation can result in prolonged allocation of fuels to the immune system, tissue inflammation, and a chronically aberrant immune reaction, he continued.
