A study reveals how physical activity and a favorable living environment stimulate the production of a protein essential to vascular health, reducing the harmful effects of stress and preventing depression.
A research team at Université Laval may have identified why physical exercise and living under favorable socioeconomic conditions reduce the risk of depression. In laboratory animals exposed to chronic social stress—one of the main causes of depression—physical activity and an enriched environment helped maintain the integrity of the blood–brain barrier in brain regions associated with mood and emotional regulation. The findings, recently published in Nature Communications, highlight the key role played by a brain protein, Fgf2, in this protective mechanism and its potential as a biomarker for mood disorders.
“The blood–brain barrier has multiple lines of defense made up of different types of cells that are not tightly joined together. What seals the gaps between the cells in the first line is the protein claudin-5. Without it, the barrier loses its impermeability,” explains the study’s lead author, Caroline Ménard, rofessor at the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval and researcher at the CERVO Research Centre.
Read the article in French at Ulaval Nouvelles
