Peng Yiyi, Chen Zhenni, Xu Yang, Ren Biqiong
Clinical School of Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Hunan Province 410007 P. R. China.
Xiangya Second Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province 410011 P. R. China.
Sci Adv. 2025 Jul 25;11(30):eadx3698. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adx3698.
The incidence rate, disability rate, and suicide rate of major depressive disorder (MDD) are increasing year by year, but the mechanism has not yet been clarified. There are multiple hypotheses about the etiology of MDD, among which the cross-talk between the immune system and the nervous system breaks the boundaries between neurologic and psychiatric disorders and provides a breakthrough in the etiologic study of MDD. Combining the immunological "danger theory," inflammation triggered by damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) produced by the central nervous system (CNS) and the immune system may be the underlying cause of MDD; however, MDD has not yet been explored in depth from this perspective. This work reviewed the cross-talk of DAMPs between the CNS and the immune system, suggesting that stress-induced CNS inflammation is an important pathogenetic mechanism of MDD, and the cross-talk of DAMPs is a central factor, refining the hypothesis of the etiology of MDD.
重度抑郁症（MDD）的发病率、致残率和自杀率逐年上升，但其发病机制尚未阐明。关于MDD的病因有多种假说，其中免疫系统与神经系统之间的相互作用打破了神经疾病和精神疾病之间的界限，为MDD的病因学研究提供了突破。结合免疫学“危险理论”，中枢神经系统（CNS）和免疫系统产生的损伤相关分子模式（DAMPs）引发的炎症可能是MDD的潜在病因；然而，尚未从这一角度对MDD进行深入研究。这项工作回顾了CNS与免疫系统之间DAMPs的相互作用，表明应激诱导的CNS炎症是MDD的重要发病机制，而DAMPs的相互作用是一个核心因素，完善了MDD的病因假说。
