Is depression an adaptation?
by
Nesse RM
Department of Psychiatry,
University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor 48106-1248, USA.
nesse@umich.edu
Arch Gen Psychiatry 2000 Jan; 57(1):14-20

ABSTRACT

Many functions have been suggested for low mood or depression, including communicating a need for help, signaling yielding in a hierarchy conflict, fostering disengagement from commitments to unreachable goals, and regulating patterns of investment. A more comprehensive evolutionary explanation may emerge from attempts to identify how the characteristics of low mood increase an organism's ability to cope with the adaptive challenges characteristic of unpropitious situations in which effort to pursue a major goal will likely result in danger, loss, bodily damage, or wasted effort. In such situations, pessimism and lack of motivation may give a fitness advantage by inhibiting certain actions, especially futile or dangerous challenges to dominant figures, actions in the absence of a crucial resource or a viable plan, efforts that would damage the body, and actions that would disrupt a currently unsatisfactory major life enterprise when it might recover or the alternative is likely to be even worse. These hypotheses are consistent with considerable evidence and suggest specific tests.

SSRIs
NARIs
RIMAs
Options
Antisense
Rank Theory
SSRIs/SNRIs
Comparisons
New Anxiolytics
Antidepressants
New Antidepressants
The searching-waiting strategy

HOME
HedWeb
HerbWeb
BLTC Research
Paradise-Engineering
The Hedonistic Imperative
When Is It Best To Take Crack Cocaine?

The Good Drug Guide
The Responsible Parent's Guide To
Healthy Mood Boosters For All The Family