It is hypothesized that major depression disorder (MDD) is associated with impaired neuronal plasticity, and that antidepressant treatments restore neuroplasticity. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and erythropoietin (Epo) show neurotrophic and neuroprotective effects. We evaluated plasma Epo and BDNF levels in 50 MDD inpatients before treatment and in 50 healthy controls. The MDD inpatients consisted of 20 MDD patients without and 30 MDD patients with a recent suicide attempt. The plasma Epo level was significantly higher in nonsuicidal and suicidal MDD patients than in healthy controls (p ≤ 0.001), while the plasma BDNF level was significantly lower in suicidal MDD than in nonsuicidal MDD patients and healthy controls (p ≤ 0.001). When classifying study participants into low-Epo and high-Epo and low-BDNF and high-BDNF subgroups based on the cutoff of Epo or BDNF calculated using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis, logistic regression analysis revealed that high-Epo and low-BDNF status correlated with a respective significant odds ratio of 7.367 (p = 0.015) and 33.123 (p ≤ 0.001) for suicidal MDD. In conclusion, plasma BDNF level was decreased in untreated MDD patients, which was presumed to be a dysfunctional effect of the onset of MDD. However, an increase in plasma Epo was observed in MDD in connection with a recent suicide attempt, indicating that this triggers hypoxic stress to induce a compensatory increase in Epo.

据推测，重度抑郁症 (MDD) 与神经元可塑性受损有关，而抗抑郁药治疗可恢复神经可塑性。脑源性神经营养因子 (BDNF) 和促红细胞生成素 (Epo) 具有神经营养和神经保护作用。我们评估了治疗前 50 名 MDD 住院患者和 50 名健康对照者的血浆 Epo 和 BDNF 水平。MDD 住院患者包括 20 名没有自杀企图的 MDD 患者和 30 名最近有自杀企图的 MDD 患者。非自杀性和自杀性 MDD 患者的血浆 Epo 水平显着高于健康对照组（p  ≤ 0.001），而自杀性 MDD 患者的血浆 BDNF 水平显着低于非自杀性 MDD 患者和健康对照组（p ≤ 0.001)。当基于使用受试者工作特征 (ROC) 曲线分析计算的 Epo 或 BDNF 的截止值将研究参与者分为低 Epo 和高 Epo 以及低 BDNF 和高 BDNF 亚组时，逻辑回归分析显示高 Epo 和低-BDNF 状态与自杀性 MDD 的显着优势比分别为 7.367 ( p  = 0.015) 和 33.123 ( p  ≤ 0.001)。总之，未经治疗的 MDD 患者血浆 BDNF 水平降低，这被认为是 MDD 发病的功能障碍效应。然而，在 MDD 中观察到血浆 Epo 的增加与最近的自杀企图有关，这表明这会引发低氧应激以诱导 Epo 的代偿性增加。