What chemicals in the brain are elevated when an individual is clinically depressed?

Question

I remember learning in school, but can't remember. I know one caused a loss of appetite.

Answer 1

Cortisol can be increased with depression caused by disturbances in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
Dopamine can be increased with the manic stages of bipolar, but it is lower in the depressive stages. Norepinephrine is lower with depression as is serotonin.

Answer 2

What is known is that one major cause of depression is an imbalance in certain chemicals in the brain cells (neurons) called neurotransmitters, which carry signals between brain cells. The particular neurotransmitter that depressives do not have enough of is serotonin, although another, norepinephrine, is also known to play a part. There is strong statistical evidence showing that depression can be inherited from ones parents. Studies of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans have shown that the brains of depressed people function very differently to those of non-depressive people. Still more recent studies have shown that a small section of the brain known as the subgenual prefrontal cortex is significantly smaller in depressed patients with a family history of depression than in non-depressives (Gorman (1997)). The aforementioned part of the brain is known to be associated with the control of emotions. Still other studies have shown a significant link between suicidal and aggressive behavior and a low concentration of a chemical (5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid) in the spinal fluid (Feiger (1993)). There are also some chemical tests for depression discussed by Feiger (1993), although they are not accurate enough and are too expensive to warrant their use for common diagnosis; besides, diagnosing depression is normally quite easy anyway, and can be done just by asking the patient a series of questions..

Answer 3

Seretonin is lowered, sorry I don't know what is elevated