News Releases & Research Results Personality classification enhances the discrimination capacity of a blood biomarker for depression - Human-mouse cross-validation study -

News Releases & Research Results

Outline

The results of collaborative research led by Assistant Professor Daiki Setoyama and Professor Dongchon Kang of the Department of Clinical Laboratory and Lecturer Takahiro Kato and Professor Emeritus Shigenobu Kanba of the Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kyushu University Hospital, Specially Appointed Professor Shigeto Yamawaki of Hiroshima University, and Associate Professor Masaaki Iwata of Tottori University, and others.

The key results of research are as follows:

  • The discrimination capacity of a blood biomarker for depression has been dramatically enhanced in individuals with specific personalities.
  • Specifically, healthy individuals and depressed patients could be classified according to the severity of “depressive temperament” using a “Big Five” personality test (*1), and the discrimination accuracy of the depression detection model based on blood metabolome analysis (*2) was dramatically enhanced only for those with small biases in “depressive temperament.”
    (*1) Personality test using a self-administered questionnaire that allows the classification of five personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness.
    (*2) A technique for the comprehensive analysis of various low-molecular-weight compounds (metabolites) mainly contained in plasma.
  • Besides, the measurement of blood metabolites in “socially defeated stress-susceptible mice,” known as a stress-induced depression model, revealed decreased blood tryptophan after stress loading.
  • The results of this research should promote personalized medicine based on the biotyping of each individual by personality testing and blood sampling.

This program was conducted with the Strategic Research Program for Brain Sciences by AMED.

The results were published in the international academic journal, Journal of Affective Disorders, on October 1.

Article

10/01/20

Last updated 10/01/20