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A Computational Hypothesis on How Serotonin Regulates Catecholamines in the Pathogenesis of Depressive Apathy

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Multiscale Models of Brain Disorders

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Cognitive and Neural Systems ((SSCNS,volume 13))

Abstract

Despite increasing literature supports a strong involvement of dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin dysfunctions in the pathogenesis of most depressive disorders, the (causal) relationship between those monoamines impairments and the resulting disorder features is still not clear. We propose a hypothesis based on a computational model for which some depressive features may be produced by pathologically low levels of serotonin, which in turn causes a downregulation of catecholamine release. The simulations run with the model demonstrate that this process may be critical to the genesis of apathy, which is one of the most frequent and invalidating features of depressive disorders.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Massimo Silvetti

  2. Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), Rome, Italy

    Gianluca Baldassarre & Daniele Caligiore

Authors
  1. Massimo Silvetti
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  2. Gianluca Baldassarre
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  3. Daniele Caligiore
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniele Caligiore .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK

    Vassilis Cutsuridis

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Silvetti, M., Baldassarre, G., Caligiore, D. (2019). A Computational Hypothesis on How Serotonin Regulates Catecholamines in the Pathogenesis of Depressive Apathy. In: Cutsuridis, V. (eds) Multiscale Models of Brain Disorders. Springer Series in Cognitive and Neural Systems, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18830-6_12

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