Depressive disorders are associated with changes of immune cell deformability

In a new study "Longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and cell deformability: do glucocorticoids play a role?", Rivercyte co-founders Martin Kräter and Jochen Guck, together with collaborators from Dresden University of Technology and the University of Zurich, found that depressive symptom severity is linked with increased immune cell deformability, revealing a yet unclear connection between depression and immune function.

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Recently, the “Mood Morph” study uncovered that depressive disorders are associated with increased peripheral blood cell deformability. In a new 2024 study, Martin Kräter and Jochen Guck (both co-founders of Rivercyte) together with Julian Eder and Clemens Kirschbaum (Dresden University of Technology) and Andreas Walther (University of Zurich) followed up on Mood Morph. The authors identified that the severity of depressive symptoms (measured by PHQ-9 and levels of hair glucocorticoids) predicts immune cell physical properties longitudinally over one year. The study found that people with more severe depressive symptoms at timepoint 1 (T1) tend to have more flexible immune cells 12 months after the assessment of the depressive symptoms by PHQ-9 and levels of stress hormones (T2). Surprisingly, stress hormones (measured from hair samples) did not explain this connection as no correlation of T1 and T2 could be seen. While the exact reason remains unclear, the results suggest that depression might influence the immune system in ways we are just beginning to understand.