Publication date: Mar 25, 2025

It found that higher levels of these inflammatory markers were linked to increased production of neurotoxic chemicals in the kynurenine pathway. Sex-Specific Alternations of Kyneurenine Pathway in Association with Risk and Remission of Depression in Adolescence, Biological Psychiatry (2025). When tryptophan is broken down, it can take two routes in the brain: one that produces neuroprotective (brain-protecting) chemicals and another that produces neurotoxic (brain-damaging) chemicals. There were 50 adolescents in each group and they were evenly divided by biological sex to explore differences between male and female adolescents. “Using blood tests, the study assessed the levels of kynurenic and quinolinic acids in a group of 150 teenagers from Brazil aged between 14 and 16. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content’s credibility:Credit: CC0 Public DomainDepression is a mental health condition that affects 280 million people worldwide. It is twice as common in women than men and this pattern starts to develop during adolescence.

Semantics