Statins May Provide Protection Against Depression - Neuroscience News

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Summary: Statins reduced negative emotional bias in people with depression.

Now, a new study examines the influence of statins on emotional bias, a marker for risk of depression.

Participants taking statins were less likely to recognize fearful or angry faces and more likely to report them as positive, indicating they had reduced negative emotional bias.

Gillespie said that they “found that taking a statin medication was associated with significantly lower levels of negative emotional bias when interpreting facial expressions; this was not seen with other medications, such as blood pressure medications.”.

“We know that reducing negative emotional bias can be important for the treatment of depression,” said Dr.

“Our findings are important as they provide evidence that statins may provide protection against depression.

It remains unclear exactly how statins could protect against mental illness, but one possibility is that they may work through anti-inflammatory mechanisms, which have also been implicated in depression.

“Researchers should prioritize investigating the possible use of statins as a preventative intervention for depression.

“Associations between statin use and negative affective bias during COVID-19: an observational, longitudinal UK study investigating depression vulnerability” by Amy L.

Associations between statin use and negative affective bias during COVID-19: an observational, longitudinal UK study investigating depression vulnerability.

We tested whether statin use is associated with cognitive markers previously found to indicate psychological vulnerability to depression, within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants completed cognitive tasks assessing processes related to depression vulnerability, including affective bias and reward processing

These indicators of reduced negative bias were not seen in participants taking anti-hypertensive medication alone, suggesting that they were related to statin use in particular rather than non-specific demographic factors

Statin use was associated with cognitive markers indicative of reduced psychological vulnerability to depression, supporting their potential use as a prophylactic treatment for depression