Blood BDNF level is gender specific in severe depression

Anatoly Kreinin, Serah Lisson, Elimelech Nesher, Jenny Schneider, Josef Bergman, Kamal Farhat, Joseph Farah, Flavio Lejbkowicz, Gal Yadid, Leon Raskin, Igor Koman, Albert Pinhasov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

68 Scopus citations

Abstract

Though the role of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) as a marker for major depressive disorder (MDD) and antidepressant efficacy has been widely studied, the role of BDNF in distinct groups of patients remains unclear. We evaluated the diagnostic value of BDNF as a marker of disease severity measured by HAM-D scores and antidepressants efficacy among MDD patients. Fifty-one patients who met DSM-IV criteria for MDD and were prescribed antidepressants and 38 controls participated in this study. BDNF in serum was measured at baseline, 1st, 2nd and 8th treatment weeks. Depression severity was evaluated using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D). BDNF polymorphism rs6265 (val66met) was genotyped. We found a positive correlation between blood BDNF levels and severity of depression only among untreated women with severe MDD (HAM-D>24). Serum BDNF levels were lower in untreated MDD patients compared to control group. Antidepressants increased serum BDNF levels and reduced between-group differences after two weeks of treatment. No correlations were observed between BDNF polymorphism, depression severity, duration of illness, age and BDNF serum levels. Further supporting the role of BDNF in the pathology and treatment of MDD, we suggest that it should not be used as a universal biomarker for diagnosis of MDD in the general population. However, it has diagnostic value for the assessment of disease progression and treatment efficacy in individual patients.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0127643
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume10
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Kreinin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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