New Delhi, May 18 (ANI): While Indo-Mediterranean diets are anti-inflammatory and considered good for a healthy heart, recently, cohort studies and case-control studies have demonstrated that western-style diets rich in sugar and lack of physical activity are important behavioural risk factors of heart failure. The study was published in The Open Inflammation Journal. Pre-heart failure may be defined as a state of myocardial dysfunction, which is at high risk for developing complete heart failure. It is similar to pre-diabetes or pre-hypertension for developing diabetes mellitus and hypertension, respectively. Pre-heart failure is characterised with changes in cardiac muscles that are known as remodelling which may help to keep the blood pumping, but the ventricular walls may eventually weaken and are not able to pump adequate blood to the circulatory system resulting into chronic heart failure. The criteria for the diagnosis of pre-heart failure and heart failure were an electrocardiographic and radiological increase in the size of the heart. Effects of Indo-Mediterranean style foods on parameters of pre-heart failure and heart failure and arrhythmias were significantly lower in the intervention group compared to the control group. At baseline, all the parameters of heart failure showed no significant differences, between the intervention and control group. It is possible that treatment with Indo-Mediterranean style diets can cause a significant decline in pre-heart failure, heart failure as well as in arrhythmias, possibly due to the anti-inflammatory effects of such diets, which may be important mechanisms for the reduction in cardiovascular mortality in patients with recent myocardial infarction and high risk of cardiovascular diseases.

New Delhi, May 16 (ANI): Several simpler methods apart from nasopharyngeal swab technique are being used to conduct coronavirus testing that may help flatten the transmission curve in order to prevent a sharp spike in cases. One such test is at-Home COVID-19 Saliva Test which is simpler as well as for those who may not be able to go to one of the drive-up testing sites. While the conventional testing procedure follows the procedure of nasopharyngeal swabs, the new test developed by Andrew Brooks requires the suspect to only spit inside a cup. Unlike the conventional testing procedures, the saliva tests can be performed by people at home and sent them to Rutgers clinical genomics laboratory via mail. The results of the test can be ascertained within 48 hours.

New Delhi, May 15 (ANI): Researchers report that airborne droplets produced through speech could be a potentially significant mode of COVID-19 transmission. Recent experiments have shown that speaking produces thousands of oral fluid droplets per second. The droplets can harbour respiratory pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2. Philip Anfinrud, Adriaan Bax, and colleagues used laser light scattering to examine the small-sized droplets that can linger in the air for minutes after exiting the mouth and that have been implicated in airborne disease transmission. Based on the rates at which droplets disappeared from the field of view, the authors estimated an average terminal velocity corresponding to a particle diameter of approximately 4 um. Because speech-generated droplets rapidly shrink to an estimated 20-34% of their original size due to water evaporation once they become airborne, the observed 4 um particles would initially have been emitted as 12-21 um droplets. Speaking generated about 2,600 such droplets per second, corresponding to an estimated 2.4-12 nL of airborne oral fluid. Assuming that oral fluid contains approximately 7 million SARS-CoV-2 copies per mL as previously reported, the authors report that 1 minute of loud speaking could generate more than 1,000 virus-containing droplets that would remain airborne for 8 minutes or longer. The results suggest that normal speaking in enclosed environments might carry a substantial risk of virus transmission, according to the authors.

New Delhi, May 14 (ANI): A fasting-mimicking diet could be more effective at treating some types of cancer when combined with vitamin C, suggests a new study conducted by the scientists from USC and the IFOM Cancer Institute in Milan. In studies on mice, researchers found that the combination delayed tumour progression in multiple mouse models of colorectal cancer; in some mice, it caused disease regression. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications. The researchers said that while fasting remains a challenging option for cancer patients, a safer, more feasible option is a low-calorie, plant-based diet that causes cells to respond as if the body were fasting. Their findings suggest that a low-toxicity treatment of fasting-mimicking diet plus vitamin C has the potential to replace more toxic treatments. The scientists believe cancer will eventually be treated with low-toxicity drugs in a manner similar to how antibiotics are used to treat infections that kill particular bacteria, but which can be substituted by other drugs if the first is not effective.

New Delhi, May 11 (ANI): In a bid to understand the growing use of e-cigarettes among youth, researchers have analysed the factors that influence adolescents to use it frequently. In the Public Health Nursing study of 1,556 adolescents in Korea, 55.1 per cent reported that they had used e-cigarettes for 6 to 30 days in the past month and 44.9 per cent used them from 1 to 5 days. The belief of e-cigarettes being less harmful than tobacco cigarettes is one of the major factors behind the growing use. The other reasons include the easy availability of e-cigarettes, and that they have various added flavours to it.Also, frequent users were more likely to have a higher weekly allowance, less likely to live with family, and more likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke at home. “Due to the characteristics of e-cigarettes, such as ease of purchase and the addition of taste and flavouring, the risk of continued use in adolescents is particularly high,” said corresponding author Hyunmi Son, PhD, RN, an associate professor at Pusan National University, in South Korea.

New Delhi, May 10 (ANI): While the chronic rejection of transplanted organs is the leading cause of transplant failure, a new discovery suggests that the innate immune system can specifically remember foreign cells, which could pave the way to drugs that lengthen long-term survival of transplanted organs. The new discovery, led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Houston Methodist Hospital, based on results in a mouse model, were published in the journal Science. The immune system is composed of innate and adaptive branches. The innate immune cells are the first to detect foreign organisms in the body and are required to activate the adaptive immune system. Immunological "memory" -- which allows our bodies to remember foreign invaders so they can fight them off quicker in the future -- was thought to be unique to the adaptive immune system. Vaccines, for example, take advantage of this feature to provide long-term protection against bacteria or viruses. Unfortunately, this very critical function of the immune system is also why transplanted organs are eventually rejected, even in the presence of immune-suppressing drugs. The finding has implications beyond transplantation, according to Oberbarnscheidt. "A broad range of diseases, including cancer and autoimmune conditions, could benefit from this insight. It changes the way we think about the innate immune system."

New Delhi, May 09 (ANI): Improved everyday hygiene practices, such as hand-washing, decreases the risk of common infections by up to 50 per cent, reducing the need for antibiotics by up to 30 per cent, according to a new position paper. Global public health experts are now calling for home and community hygiene to become part of strategic plans to reduce hundreds of thousands of deaths from AMR (Antimicrobial Resistance) globally each year. The position paper is published in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC). As witnessed during the recent global efforts to delay the spread of COVID-19, hygiene practices, including hand-washing, have become an essential part of everyone's daily routine and are considered to be the first line of defence in reducing the spread of common infections. However, national and international AMR strategies, while focussing on the important role of hygiene in the healthcare setting, fail to recognise the key role that home and community hygiene plays.

New Delhi, May 08 (ANI): People aged 40-79 are at significantly lower risk of long or frequent hospital admissions if they do some form of physical activity, a new study suggests. According to the study, exercising regularly can cut 25-27 per cent of the risk of frequent hospital stays. Inactive participants in the study spent just over 4 days more in hospital over the next ten years than those who did at least some physical activity, whether for work or leisure. And similar results were observed 10 years later when the same participants were 50-90 years old. The researchers found that in the first ten years active participants were 25-27 per cent less likely than inactive participants to have more than 20 hospital days or more than 7 admissions per year with similar results over the subsequent ten years.

New Delhi, May 07 (ANI): A recent study shows that people are more likely to opt for non-alcoholic drinks if more of them are available than alcoholic drinks. A team of researchers at the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre and the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, UK found that when presented with eight drink options, participants were 48 per cent more likely to choose a non-alcoholic drink when the proportion of non-alcoholic drink options increased from four (50 per cent) to six (75 per cent). Participants in the study completed an online task in which they were presented with a selection of alcoholic beer, non-alcoholic beer and soft drinks. The drink selections included four alcoholic and four non-alcoholic drinks, six alcoholic and two non-alcoholic drinks or two alcoholic and six non-alcoholic drinks. As many as 808 UK residents with an average age of 38 years, who regularly consumed alcohol, participated in the study. When presented with mostly non-alcoholic drinks, 49 per cent of participants selected a non-alcoholic drink, compared to 26 per cent of participants who selected a non-alcoholic drink when presented with most alcoholic drinks.

New Delhi, May 06 (ANI): Researchers have found that the immune responses of a female mouse before pregnancy can predict how likely her offspring are to have behavioural deficits if the immune system is activated during pregnancy. The study results could help resolve what role serious infections during pregnancy play in the later development of conditions such as autism and schizophrenia in offspring. Both genetics and a variety of environmental risk factors are thought to play a role in mental illness, said Professor Kim McAllister, director of the Center for Neuroscience and senior author on the paper. Most pregnancies are resilient, she said. Although the risk from maternal immune activation is low, it could provide a way into the underlying problems that lead to schizophrenia or autism.

New Delhi, May 05 (ANI): Researchers have discovered a new test that can detect glaucoma progression 18 months earlier than the gold standard method used currently. The clinical trial by UCL researchers was published in the journal Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics. Glaucoma, the leading global cause of irreversible blindness, affects over 60 million people, which is predicted to double by 2040 as the global population ages. Loss of sight in glaucoma is caused by the death of cells in the retina, at the back of the eye. The test, called DARC (Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells), involves injecting into the bloodstream (via the arm) a fluorescent dye that attaches to retinal cells and illuminates those that are in the process of apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death. The damaged cells appear bright white when viewed in eye examinations -- the more damaged cells detected, the higher the DARC count. One challenge with evaluating eye diseases is that specialists often disagree when viewing the same scans, so the researchers have incorporated an AI algorithm into their method.

New Delhi, May 03 (ANI): Novel study adds to the evidence that people with type-2 diabetes (T2D) are at greater risk of a poor outcome should they become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But there is some encouraging news. People with T2D whose blood sugar is well-controlled fare much better than those with more poorly controlled blood sugar. More than 500 million people around the world have T2D. While it was clear that people with this condition fare worse with COVID-19, Li and colleagues wondered what role a person's blood glucose control might have on those outcomes. To find out, they conducted a retrospective longitudinal multi-centre study including 7,337 confirmed COVID-19 cases enrolled among 19 hospitals in Hubei Province, China. Of those, 952 people had T2D and the other 6,385 did not.

New Delhi, May 02 (ANI): Lack of sleep has long been considered a potential risk factor for mood disorders. According to a new study, older people with depression, who also experience persistent and worsening sleep disturbances, are at much higher risk of remaining depressed. The study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published online in the journal Sleep, analysed data from almost 600 people over 60 years old who visited primary care centers in the Northeast US. The researchers found that those with a pattern of worsening insomnia symptoms over the following year had almost 30 times the odds of having a diagnosis of major depression at the end of that year, compared to patients whose sleep had improved during that year. Compared to patients whose sleep improved, the study found that those with insomnia symptoms that persisted but did not worsen also were more likely to have persistent major or minor depression, but their risk was not as high as patients with worsening sleep. The patients whose sleep worsened also had 11.9 times the odds of having a diagnosis of minor depression at the end of the year and were 10 percent more likely to report having suicidal thoughts at the end of the year. The results suggested that older adults who are being treated for depression and whose sleep problems are persistent or worsening need further clinical attention.

New Delhi, May 01 (ANI): An antibody treatment, using the drug tocilizumab, may be represented as an effective option in severe coronavirus cases, according to a preliminary report by Xiaoling Xu et al, published in PNAS. Tocilizumab-- as a recombinant humanized anti-human IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody, has shown benefits 'clinically' in patients who had contracted the coronavirus disease. Severe COVID-19 cases are associated with activation of large numbers of T lymphocytes and inflammatory monocytes and elevated levels of cytokines, particularly interleukin-6 (IL-6). In this study, researchers Haiming Wei, Xiaoling Xu, and colleagues examined the effects of treating 21 severe or critical COVID-19 patients, aged between 25-88 years, in Anhui Province, China. The team observed tocilizumab in the treatment of 21 patients with COVID-19, who prior to the treatment were presented with fever and lung lesions. 17 patients had abnormally low lymphocyte percentages and 20 patients had elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation. All but one patient received oxygen therapy prior to treatment. All patients' body temperatures returned to normal on the first day after receiving tocilizumab and remained stable thereafter. Within five days of treatment, 15 patients were able to reduce their oxygen intake, and lymphocyte percentages and CRP had returned to normal in 10 and 16 patients, respectively. Lung lesions were absorbed in 19 patients after treatment. All patients were discharged between 10 and 31 days after treatment, and no adverse reactions to treatment were reported. Although the results are preliminary, clinical data showed that the symptoms, hypoxygenmia, and CT opacity changes were improved immediately after the treatment with tocilizumab in most of the patients, suggesting that tocilizumab could be an efficient therapy for the treatment of COVID-19.

New Delhi, Apr 30 (ANI): Children who experience trauma, neglect, abuse, and family dysfunction are at increased risk of having heart disease in their 50s and 60s, according to a new study. Results from the Northwestern Medicine study showed people exposed to higher levels of childhood family environment adversity were more than 50 per cent more likely to have a cardiovascular disease event such as a heart attack or stroke over a 30-year follow-up. Published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the longitudinal study had more than 3,600 participants. Children who experience this type of adversity are predisposed to higher rates of lifelong stress, smoking, anxiety, depression, and a sedentary lifestyle that persist into adulthood. These can lead to increased body mass index (BMI), diabetes, increased blood pressure, vascular dysfunction, and inflammation. Adults who were exposed to these risk factors as children may benefit from counseling on the link between coping with stress and controlling smoking and obesity, but more research is needed, Pierce said.While the study didn't specifically address the attentiveness of parents, the findings indicate parents' involvement in their children's lives could impact their health later in life.

New Delhi, Apr 29 (ANI): Children's rearing environment has a meaningful impact on their risk for major depression later in life, a recent study has found and also noted the importance of nurturing environments when a child is at risk. The research was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. In the study, authors analysed the health records of full and half-siblings with at least one biological parent with depression who were raised by either their biological parents or in carefully screened adoptive homes. Generally, the children in adopted homes showed lower risk, but whatever the setting, episodes of major depression in the parents meant the children were more susceptible to depression themselves.The researchers identified 666 high-risk full sibling pairs and 2,596 high-risk pairs of half-siblings each with at least one child reared at home and one adopted. High risk was defined as having at least one biological parent with major depression.In the full sibling group, the risk for major depression among adopted siblings was 23% lower than the sibling raised in the home with their birth family. In the group of half-siblings, the risk of depression was 19% lower for the adopted siblings. For both the full and half-sibling groups, the protective effect of adoption disappeared when an adoptive parent or step-sibling had major depression. Yet, for the present study "the results demonstrate the strong impact of the rearing environment on risk for major depression and support the importance of intervention efforts to improve the rearing environment in high risk families”.

New Delhi, Apr 28 (ANI): Using a mouse model, researchers have identified a potential treatment candidate for early diabetic retinopathy which has anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects. Diabetic retinopathy is one of the main vascular complications of type 2 diabetes and the most common cause of visual deterioration in adults. Published in The American Journal of Pathology, the team reports on the efficacy of a possible treatment candidate that showed anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects on the retina and optic nerve head in early type 2 diabetic retinopathy using a diabetic mouse model. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by damage to the blood vessels of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. The cause is usually attributed to high blood sugar, but several studies have shown that inflammation is also an important factor in the progression of the disorder. Investigators analysed and compared the anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) lixisenatide in the retina and the optic nerve head with those of insulin in a mouse model of type 2 diabetes. "Thus, for better visual prognosis, we need to focus on the treatment of the retina in early type 2 diabetes before the clinical onset of diabetic retinopathy," Dr. Choi added.

New Delhi, Apr 27 (ANI): A recent study has shed a positive light on promoting cardiovascular health by regular dietary counselling from infancy to early adulthood. Altogether 1,116 children and their families from Turku participated in the study starting when the children were 7 months of age. The study was published in the journal Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. Half of the children were randomly assigned to a group that received dietary counselling promoting a heart-healthy diet according to the nutritional recommendations."The research shows that regular dietary counselling starting in infancy has a positive impact on the quality of fat in the diet, as well as on the serum cholesterol level, insulin sensitivity, and blood pressure. In addition, the clustering of adverse cardiovascular health markers is less common is the group that participated in the dietary counselling than in the control group. "As a whole, the results support the idea that counselling on a heart-healthy diet starting in childhood has a positive impact on cardiovascular health, which is sustained after discontinuation of the active counselling", sums Pahkala.

New Delhi, Apr 26 (ANI): Manipulating a particular system stress signal found in a specific brain region, could act as a therapy to taper binge drinking, according to a recent study. The study to appear in the May issue of Neuropharmacology pinpoints that deactivating a stress-signaling system found in a specific brain region can help to reduce harmful binge drinking. The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) team was led by Howard C. Becker, Ph.D., director of the Charleston Alcohol Research Center and professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. "Binge drinking is one of the most common patterns in which alcohol is consumed," explained Becker. "It's risky behavior, and one consequence of repeated binge drinking is increasing the risk for developing an alcohol use disorder," Becker added. When people drink and experience positive effects, that is partially due to pleasurable opioid receptors being activated. However, after they have finished drinking and nausea, headache, and the stress of withdrawal start to set in, the kappa opioid receptor system has been activated. Becker's team found that turning off the kappa opioid receptors in the brain decreased binge drinking. This finding suggests that the kappa opioid receptor system is important not only in the negative state of withdrawal but also in driving binge drinking itself.Hence, blocking kappa opioid receptors in the extended amygdala, therefore, could act as a therapy to taper binge drinking.

New Delhi, Apr 25 (ANI): COVID-19 is unlikely to be spread through semen, suggests a new study conducted by scientists of University of Utah. Sample from 34 Chinese men who recently had the disease were examined for conducting the study. The researchers found no evidence of virus that causes COVID-19 in semen or testes of men. The study was not comprehensive enough to fully rule out the possibility that the disease could be sexually-transmitted. However, the chances of it occurring, based on this limited finding, appear to be remote. However, Hotaling warned that intimate contact can still increase the risk of spreading the disease through coughing, sneezing, and kissing. In addition, some infected people are asymptomatic and can appear healthy, even as they pass the virus along to others.

New Delhi, Apr 23 (ANI): Increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women has prompted multiple research studies to understand the reason. A new study examined the association of socioeconomic status-related factors, unhealthy lifestyles, and diet related factors with the coexistence of metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis in women. Metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis not only adversely affect a woman's quality of life, but they also create a significant financial burden. Previous studies have suggested that these health problems are affected by lifestyle, genetic, metabolic, nutrition, and hormone factors. In particular, smoking has been shown to impair calcium absorption. In addition, an inverse relationship has been identified between metabolic syndrome and the intake of carbohydrates, vitamins (A, C, and D), calcium, fruits, and dairy products. Similarly, has an inverse association with higher intakes of vitamin D, fish, and dairy products. Researchers found that 32.5 per cent of study participants experienced both metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis. Health-related behaviour and diet-related-factors were evaluated to determine their effect on the prevalence of both metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis. Researchers concluded that the coexistence of metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis was positively associated with insufficient dairy intake, lack of physical activity, and higher alcohol consumption. However, the effect was significantly dependent on socioeconomic factors such as education, household income, place of residence, and employment status. Additional research is suggested to identify controllable factors that could enhance the health of postmenopausal women.

New Delhi, Apr 22 (ANI): Early screening of colorectal cancer in people who have a family history of the disease may help in early diagnosis, suggests a new study. In an analysis that included information on adults diagnosed with colorectal cancer between 40 and 49 years of age, almost all patients could have been diagnosed earlier if they had been screened according to current family history-based screening guidelines. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS).In many countries, colorectal cancer rates are rising in adults under 50 years of age. To identify those at risk, current guidelines recommend early screening for colorectal cancer among individuals with a family history of the disease. For example, for individuals with a first-degree relative with colorectal cancer, several medical societies recommend initiating screening at 40 years of age or 10 years prior to the age at diagnosis of the youngest relative diagnosed with colorectal cancer. To estimate the potential impact of family history-based guidelines for screening, Samir Gupta, MD, of the VA San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California San Diego, and his colleagues examined information on individuals 40 to 49 years of age--2,473 with colorectal cancer and 772 without--in the Colon Cancer Family Registry from 1998 to 2007.The investigators found that 25 percent of individuals with colorectal cancer and 10 percent of those without cancer met the criteria for family history-based early screening. Almost all (98.4 percent) patients with colorectal cancer who met these criteria should have been screened at a younger age than when their cancer was diagnosed. Therefore, they could have had their cancer diagnosed earlier, or possibly even prevented if earlier screening had been implemented based on family history-based guidelines."Our findings suggest that using family history-based criteria to identify individuals for earlier screening is justified and has promise for helping to identify individuals at risk for young-onset colorectal cancer," said Dr. Gupta."We have an opportunity to improve early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer under age 50 if patients more consistently collect and share their family history of colorectal cancer, and healthcare providers more consistently elicit and act on family history," added Gupta.

New Delhi, Apr 20 (ANI): A new study has found that young people are leaving it ‘too late’ to seek help for eating disorders, citing fear of losing control over their eating or weight, denial, and failure to perceive the severity of the illness as reasons not to get professional advice. The recent online survey of almost 300 Australian young adults aged 18-25 years found a majority had eating, weight or body shape concerns, and even those with anorexia or bulimia reportedly found reasons to delay getting treatment or expert interventions. “Not wanting others to worry about their problems was the highest endorsed barrier - it reflects the wish for autonomy and also the fear of being a burden to others in this group of young adults,” said Kathina Ali, Research Associate in Psychology at Flinders University. Helpful and free evidence-based online resources are available at websites such as Australia’s Butterfly Foundation and the National Eating Disorders Collaboration.

New Delhi, Apr 20 (ANI): As the COVID-19 lockdown has most people staying indoors, many booze lovers are planning to spend the days with their favourite alcohol. But a recent study suggests that consuming excessive alcohol is not healthy for the immune system especially at a time when a global pandemic without any cure or vaccine is spreading across the globe. "People drink because it mellows them," Fox News quoted Dr Shannon Sovndal, an ER doctor and author of 'Fragile' as saying.

New Delhi, Apr 16(ANI): A general practitioner (GP), trained in motivational interviewing may reduce risk of getting cardiovascular disease in those who are not diabetic or are at risk of developing it, suggests a randomised study from Aarhus University. More than half of all Danes above 55 years suffer from some form of cardiovascular disease. Most often, the disease is caused by atherosclerosis of the arteries in the heart and brain. A study from Aarhus University now shows that a motivational interview with a GP can have a preventative effect. The results were published in the scientific journal BJGP Open. The result derives from a survey, in which 175,000 patients aged 40 to 69 received from their general practitioner in connection with an initiative to fight diabetes. After completing the survey, each respondent could see whether he or she was at risk of having diabetes without knowing.

New Delhi, Apr 15 (ANI): A structural protein has been zeroed on by scientists as a new target for the diagnosis and treatment of depression, suggests a recent study. The research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. The protein tubulin provides structure to cells and assists in many cellular processes, but it also plays a role in depression. A modified form of tubulin anchors the protein Gas to lipid rafts, fatty structures floating in the cell membrane. In depressed people, Gas gets stuck in lipid rafts and cannot trigger the production of cAMP, a molecule necessary for quick messaging in the brain. Imaging studies have shown that people with depression have less cAMP in their brains, which is remedied after successful treatment. Other studies examined the amount of modified tubulin in the brains from people who were not depressed as well as those from people with depression who died by suicide and by other causes. All brains contained the same amount of modified tubulin, but the brains of people with depression had less modified tubulin in the lipid rafts. This could allow more tubulin to trap Gas in the lipid rafts, preventing cAMP production. Tubulin could provide a diagnostic marker of depression and a target of antidepressant treatment.