Influência das interações psiconeuroimunológicas no desenvolvimento do transtorno depressivo maior em mulheres

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is the leading cause of disability and ranks fourth among the ten leading causes of disease worldwide, and in women, the incidence of depression is twice that in men. There are different hypotheses to explain the development of depression, foremost among them the assumptions connected with psychoneuroimmunology that many depressive symptoms are linked to several factors from the interaction between the central nervous, endocrine and immune. This study aims to analyze the interactions psychoneuroimmunologic linked to the development of major depressive disorder and possible gender differences that are implicated in higher incidence of depression in women. Therefore, a systematic literature review was performed, based on the literature in electronic databases Journals Portal CAPES, PubMed, Scielo and Bireme using the keywords "psychoneuroimmunology and depression", "gender and depression" and "psychoneuroimmunology and gender ". The main results were: compared to men, women are (1) more responsive immune system, releasing, under stress, high levels of proinflammatory cytokines, which act by stimulating the release of glucocorticoids, reducing serotonin levels and induce "sickness behavior"; (2) more responsive HPA axis to stress, with increased release of glucocorticoids (3) estrogen increases the inflammatory response, the HPA axis response to stress and decreasing serotonin levels; (4) negative cognitive style to the applicants stress situations in the woman's daily life, as a result of the role assigned to it in society. Thus, from this literature review are clear gender differences in the interactions between the nervous, immune and endocrine and psychosocial factors, which may explain the higher incidence of depression in women.