Revisão dos mecanismos comportamentais e fisiológicos envolvidos na depressão contagiante

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly disabling disease, with an annual world prevalence from 3% to 11%. MDD symptoms vary significantly among patients, ranging from mood swings, lack of energy and anhedonia, to cognitive dysfunction and metabolic, endocrine or inflammatory changes. MDD is considered a very heterogeneous disease due to its high complexity of symptoms and physiological changes. Several treatments are available, including psychotherapy and antidepressant medications, but less than half of the diagnosed patients show improvement after the first pharmacological intervention. For decades it is known that depression has a contagious aspect, having a greater occurrence between individuals who share the same living environment. Unfortunately, the mechanisms by which this contagion occurs has not been widely explored. Depressive patients have difficulty in establishing emotional communication with others, which contributes to the social isolation, a characteristic of the disease. In depressed patients, there is a change in the activation patterns of the Cingulate Cortex, a region integrating emotional, sensorimotor and cognitive information, in addition to playing a fundamental role in many aspects of social cognition, perception of action and processing of empathy. In this project we aimed to better understand the mechanisms involved in contagious depression through a theoretical approach that resulted in a scientific review article that connects contagious depression, automatic mimicry and the Mirror Neuron System.