Researchers at Yale University discovered why depression and chronic stress can cause the brain to shrink, which in turn contributes to cognitive and emotional impairments.

The team found that brain shrinkage is due to a single genetic switch which triggers a loss of brain connections in humans and depression in animals. Known as a transcription factor, this genetic switch represses the expression of several genes that are required for the formation of synaptic connections between brain cells, which can cause the prefrontal cortex to lose brain mass.

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