Depression as Sickness Behavior? A Test of the Host Defense Hypothesis in a High Pathogen Population
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-1-2015
Abstract
Sadness is an emotion universally recognized across cultures, suggesting it plays an important functional role in regulating human behavior. Numerous adaptive explanations of persistent sadness interfering with daily functioning (hereafter “depression”) have been proposed, but most do not explain frequent bidirectional associations between depression and greater immune activation. Here we test several predictions of the host defense hypothesis, which posits that depression is part of a broader coordinated evolved response to infection or tissue injury (i.e. “sickness behavior”) that promotes energy conservation and reallocation to facilitate immune activation. In a high pathogen population of lean and relatively egalitarian Bolivian foragerhorticulturalists, we test whether depression and its symptoms are associated with greater baseline concentration of immune biomarkers reliably associated with depression in Western populations (i.e. tumor necrosis factor alpha [TNF-α], interleukin-1 beta [IL-1β], interleukin-6 [IL-6], and C-reactive protein [CRP]). We also test whether greater pro-inflammatory cytokine responses to ex vivo antigen stimulation are associated with depression and its symptoms, which is expected if depression facilitates immune activation. These predictions are largely supported in a sample of older adult Tsimane (mean±SD age=53.2±11.0, range=34-85, n=649) after adjusting for potential confounders. Emotional, cognitive and somatic symptoms of depression are each associated with greater immune activation, both at baseline and in response to ex vivo stimulation. The association between depression and greater immune activation is therefore not unique to Western populations. While our findings are not predicted by other adaptive hypotheses of depression, they are not incompatible with those hypotheses and future research is necessary to isolate and test competing predictions.
Recommended Citation
Stieglitz, J., Trumble, B. C., Thompson, M. E., Blackwell, A. D., Kaplan, H., & Gurven, M. (2015). Depression as sickness behavior? A test of the host defense hypothesis in a high pathogen population. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 49, 130-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2015.05.008
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
Elsevier
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Comments
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, volume 49, in 2015. https://doi.org/cc-by-nc-nd 4.0
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