depression

belated happy new year to readers, if there are any, of my neglected blog. i saw a news story on Yahoo! i just had to comment on.

in effect, researchers found a deficiency of one serotonin receptor, "1B"--one of 14 found on neurons--in mice with depression symptoms as well as tissue saved from autopsied depression patients, and that a protein, p11, controls the number of 1B receptors. further, antidepressants, and even shock therapy, increase the level of p11, while mice alterred genetically to have no p11 act depressed and do not respond to antidepressants as well as normal mice. finally, p11 belongs to a family of proteins that are sensitive to stress-related hormones, which dovetails with the association between stress & depression.

an article in today's issue of Science reports these findings. i'd like to hear what scientologists have to say about all this.