Immunological Evidence Supporting The Immune-Cytokine Model of Depression
The Immune-Cytokine Model of Depression (ICMD) is an entirely new concept for understanding the riddle of depression. This is the only model of depression to bridge the conceptual and diagnostic gap between physical and mental disorders.1,2 ICMD views depression to be any number of chronic physical-biological disorders that have mental-emotional symptoms. From the perspective of ICMD, depression isn't really a disease, but rather a multifaceted sign of chronic immune system activation. During chronic immune system activation, greater than normal amounts of various cytokines are secreted. The cytokines produce the multifaceted signs and symptoms of depression. This chapter summarizes the extensive immunological evidence supporting ICMD. Chapter 7 reviews the evidence from biological psychiatry supporting ICMD.
Cytokines Cause The Symptoms Of Depression
Cytokines are at the heart of the immunological basis of depression since they provoke a wide spectrum of neuropsychiatric symptoms when given to human volunteers. The profound effects of cytokines on mood, thought and behavior were first discovered in the early 1980's. For the first time in history, physicians had found molecules made by the human body which, when given to humans, produced all the symptoms necessary for the diagnosis of depression.
These discoveries are of monumental importance. They should have dazzled every psychiatrist and psychologist in the world, but quite surprisingly, mental health professionals had meager interest in these discoveries. Most psychologists and psychiatrists were (and still seem to be) engrossed in their own theories of psychopathology and had little time or interest in psychiatric discoveries coming from other disciplines, especially when they came from something as seemingly unrelated as immunology...

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