The Evolutionary Origins of Mood and Its Disorders

The term 'mood' in its scientific usage refers to relatively enduring affective states that arise when negative or positive experience in one context or time period alters the individual's threshold for responding to potentially negative or positive events in subsequent contexts or time periods. The capacity for mood appears to be phylogenetically widespread and the mechanisms underlying it are highly conserved in diverse animals, suggesting it has an important adaptive function. In this review, we discuss how moods can be classified across species, and what the selective advantages of the capacity for mood are. Core moods can be localised within a two-dimensional continuous space, where one axis represents sensitivity to punishment or threat, and the other, sensitivity to reward. Depressed mood and anxious mood represent two different quadrants of this space. The adaptive function of mood is to integrate information about the recent state of the environment and current physical condition of the organism to fine-tune its decisions about the allocation of behavioural effort. Many empirical observations from both humans and non-human animals are consistent with this model. We discuss the implications of this adaptive approach to mood systems for mood disorders in humans.

[1]  Alison J. Longley,et al.  Depression is an adaptation. , 2001, Archives of general psychiatry.

[2]  M. Bateson,et al.  Stereotyping starlings are more ‘pessimistic’ , 2010, Animal Cognition.

[3]  P. Watson,et al.  The bright side of being blue: depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems. , 2009, Psychological review.

[4]  M. Bateson,et al.  Cognitive bias in the chick anxiety–depression model , 2011, Brain Research.

[5]  M. Bateson,et al.  Performance on a categorisation task suggests that removal of environmental enrichment induces ‘pessimism’ in captive European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) , 2007, Animal Welfare.

[6]  M. Eysenck,et al.  Bias in interpretation of ambiguous sentences related to threat in anxiety. , 1991, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[7]  C. MacLeod,et al.  Selective processing of threat cues in anxiety states. , 1985, Behaviour research and therapy.

[8]  Raymond J. O'Connor,et al.  Models of Adaptive Behaviour: An Approach Based on State. , 2001 .

[9]  Alasdair I. Houston,et al.  Models of Adaptive Behaviour: An Approach Based on State , 1999 .

[10]  Sandro Galea,et al.  Urban neighborhood poverty and the incidence of depression in a population-based cohort study. , 2007, Annals of epidemiology.

[11]  D. Nettle.  The evolution of personality variation in humans and other animals. , 2006, The American psychologist.

[12]  M. Millan,et al.  The neurobiology and control of anxious states , 2003, Progress in Neurobiology.

[13]  Jeffrey W. Kusulas,et al.  Distinguishing optimism from pessimism : relations to fundamental dimensions of mood and personality , 1992 .

[14]  S. Mineka,et al.  Fears, phobias, and preparedness: toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. , 2001, Psychological review.

[15]  Joseph E LeDoux.  Rethinking the Emotional Brain , 2012, Neuron.

[16]  M. Bateson,et al.  Anxiety: An Evolutionary Approach , 2011, Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie.

[17]  M. Bateson,et al.  Agitated Honeybees Exhibit Pessimistic Cognitive Biases , 2011, Current Biology.

[18]  K. Mogg,et al.  Effect of short-term SSRI treatment on cognitive bias in generalised anxiety disorder , 2004, Psychopharmacology.

[19]  M. Mendl,et al.  Measuring emotional processes in animals: the utility of a cognitive approach , 2005, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[20]  A. Mykletun,et al.  Levels of anxiety and depression as predictors of mortality: the HUNT study , 2009, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[21]  P. Johnson-Laird,et al.  Towards a Cognitive Theory of Emotions , 1987 .

[22]  R. Nesse,et al.  Fear and fitness: an evolu-tionary analysis of anxiety disorders , 1994 .

[23]  C. D. De Dreu,et al.  A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood-creativity research: hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus? , 2008, Psychological bulletin.

[24]  T. Rimehaug,et al.  Anxiety and depressive symptoms related to parenthood in a large Norwegian community sample: the HUNT2 study , 2009, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

[25]  N. Brydges,et al.  Environmental enrichment induces optimistic cognitive bias in rats , 2011, Animal Behaviour.

[26]  Brien Riley,et al.  The interaction of stressful life events and a serotonin transporter polymorphism in the prediction of episodes of major depression: a replication. , 2005, Archives of general psychiatry.

[27]  D. Stephens,et al.  Tracking a changing environment: optimal sampling, adaptive memory and overnight effects , 2012, Behavioural Processes.

[28]  Kenneth S Kendler,et al.  Life event dimensions of loss, humiliation, entrapment, and danger in the prediction of onsets of major depression and generalized anxiety. , 2003, Archives of general psychiatry.

[29]  J. Eriksson,et al.  Prenatal growth, postnatal growth and trait anxiety in late adulthood – the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study , 2010, Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica.

[30]  M. Mendl,et al.  Animal behaviour: Cognitive bias and affective state , 2004, Nature.

[31]  J. Russell,et al.  Independence and bipolarity in the structure of current affect. , 1998 .

[32]  C. Carver,et al.  Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS Scales , 1994 .

[33]  Melissa Bateson,et al.  Larger, enriched cages are associated with 'optimistic' response biases in captive European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) , 2008 .

[34]  A. Caspi,et al.  Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene , 2003, Science.

[35]  C. McKittrick,et al.  Animal models of social stress: effects on behavior and brain neurochemical systems , 2001, Physiology & Behavior.

[36]  D. Stephens.  Change, regularity, and value in the evolution of animal learning , 1991 .

[37]  J. Russell.  Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. , 2003, Psychological review.

[38]  M C Neale,et al.  Major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Same genes, (partly) different environments? , 1992, Archives of general psychiatry.

[39]  J. Wakefield,et al.  The concept of mental disorder. On the boundary between biological facts and social values. , 1992, The American psychologist.

[40]  A. Mar,et al.  Variations in maternal care in the rat as a mediating influence for the effects of environment on development , 2003, Physiology & Behavior.

[41]  Michael D. Robinson,et al.  Approach motivation as incentive salience: perceptual sources of evidence in relation to positive word primes. , 2012, Emotion.

[42]  Further evidence of relation between prenatal famine and major affective disorder. , 2000, The American journal of psychiatry.

[43]  D. Stephens.  The logic of risk-sensitive foraging preferences , 1981, Animal Behaviour.

[44]  P. Moran,et al.  Single mothers, poverty and depression , 1997, Psychological Medicine.

[45]  P. Kendall,et al.  Comorbidity of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents. , 1992, Psychological bulletin.

[46]  J. Wakefield,et al.  The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder , 2007 .

[47]  L. Cosmides,et al.  Toward an evolutionary taxonomy of treatable conditions. , 1999, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[48]  D. M. Green,et al.  Signal detection theory and psychophysics , 1966 .

[49]  E. Hagen.  Evolutionary Theories of Depression: A Critical Review , 2011, Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie.

[50]  P. Ellsworth,et al.  Evolution, Emotions, and Emotional Disorders What Emotions Are What Different Emotions Exist? , 2009 .

[51]  Richie Poulton,et al.  Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Cumulative and Sequential Comorbidity in a Birth Cohort Followed Prospectively to Age 32 Years , 2009 .

[52]  P. Ekman.  An argument for basic emotions , 1992 .

[53]  B. Fredrickson.  The role of positive emotions in positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. , 2001, The American psychologist.

[54]  H. Simon,et al.  Prenatal Stress Increases the Hypothalamo‐Pituitary‐Adrenal Axis Response in Young and Adult Rats , 1994, Journal of neuroendocrinology.

[55]  Randolph M. Nesse,et al.  Natural selection and the regulation of defenses: A signal detection analysis of the smoke detector principle. , 2004 .

[56]  C. Nemeroff,et al.  The role of childhood trauma in the neurobiology of mood and anxiety disorders: preclinical and clinical studies , 2001, Biological Psychiatry.

[57]  N. Allen,et al.  The social risk hypothesis of depressed mood: evolutionary, psychosocial, and neurobiological perspectives. , 2003, Psychological bulletin.

[58]  J. Kelly,et al.  The olfactory bulbectomized rat as a model of depression: an update. , 1997, Pharmacology & therapeutics.

[59]  S. Mednick,et al.  Adult major affective disorder after prenatal exposure to an influenza epidemic. , 1997, Archives of general psychiatry.

[60]  M. Le Moal,et al.  Prenatal Stress Induces High Anxiety and Postnatal Handling Induces Low Anxiety in Adult Offspring: Correlation with Stress-Induced Corticosterone Secretion , 1997, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[61]  Michael Eid,et al.  Subjective well-being and adaptation to life events: a meta-analysis. , 2012, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[62]  T. Robbins,et al.  Neurobehavioural mechanisms of reward and motivation , 1996, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[63]  I. Gotlib,et al.  Biased information processing as a vulnerability factor for depression , 1998 .

[64]  W. Cullen,et al.  Research confuses me: what is the difference between case-control and cohort studies in quantitative research? , 2013, Irish medical journal.

[65]  M. Bateson,et al.  Water bathing alters threat perception in starlings , 2012, Biology Letters.

[66]  N. Humphrey.  Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness , 2011 .

[67]  M. Rutter,et al.  Genetic moderation of environmental risk for depression and anxiety in adolescent girls , 2001, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[68]  Charles S. Carver,et al.  Affect and the Functional Bases of Behavior: On the Dimensional Structure of Affective Experience , 2001 .

[69]  D. Watson,et al.  Toward a consensual structure of mood. , 1985, Psychological bulletin.

[70]  M. Mendl,et al.  Dogs showing separation-related behaviour exhibit a ‘pessimistic’ cognitive bias , 2010, Current Biology.

[71]  R. Nesse,et al.  The Evolutionary Significance of Depressive Symptoms : Different Adverse Situations Lead to Different Depressive Symptom Patterns , 2006 .

[72]  D. Nettle.  An evolutionary model of low mood states. , 2009, Journal of theoretical biology.

[73]  M. Mendl,et al.  An integrative and functional framework for the study of animal emotion and mood , 2010, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[74]  E. Fulcher,et al.  Cognitive biases in anxiety and attention to threat , 1997, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[75]  M. Mendl,et al.  Anxiety-induced cognitive bias in non-human animals , 2009, Physiology & Behavior.

[76]  Paul Linkowski,et al.  Sleep disturbance in anxiety disorders , 2005, International review of psychiatry.

[77]  Sasha R. X. Dall,et al.  Information and its use by animals in evolutionary ecology. , 2005, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[78]  C. Darwin.  The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , .

[79]  B. Mulsant,et al.  The association of late-life depression and anxiety with physical disability: a review of the literature and prospectus for future research. , 2001, The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

[80]  Richard Muscat,et al.  Chronic mild stress-induced anhedonia: A realistic animal model of depression , 1992, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[81]  M. Bateson,et al.  When Is General Wariness Favored in Avoiding Multiple Predator Types? , 2012, The American Naturalist.

[82]  Danielle L. Graham,et al.  Essential Role of BDNF in the Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway in Social Defeat Stress , 2006, Science.

[83]  J. Vaidya,et al.  The two general activation systems of affect: Structural findings, evolutionary considerations, and psychobiological evidence , 1999 .

[84]  Daniel Nettle,et al.  The Paranoid Optimist: An Integrative Evolutionary Model of Cognitive Biases , 2006, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[85]  M. Hotopf,et al.  The protective role of trait anxiety: a longitudinal cohort study , 2006, Psychological Medicine.

[86]  Thomas A. Waite,et al.  Background context and decision making in hoarding gray jays , 2001 .

[87]  D. Nettle.  Normality, disorder, and evolved function: the case of depression , 2011 .

[88]  Oliver von Bohlen und Halbach,et al.  Ambiguous-Cue Interpretation is Biased Under Stress- and Depression-Like States in Rats , 2010, Neuropsychopharmacology.

[89]  N. Dingemanse,et al.  Fitness consequences of avian personalities in a fluctuating environment , 2004, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[90]  A. Well,et al.  Seasonal Variation of Depression and Other Moods: A Longitudinal Approach , 2000, Journal of biological rhythms.

[91]  J. Feldon,et al.  Long-term effects of early-life environmental manipulations in rodents and primates: Potential animal models in depression research , 2005, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[92]  J. Barendregt,et al.  Global burden of disease , 1997, The Lancet.

[93]  R. Macnab,et al.  The gradient-sensing mechanism in bacterial chemotaxis. , 1972, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[94]  Richard M A Parker,et al.  Cognitive bias as an indicator of animal emotion and welfare: Emerging evidence and underlying mechanisms , 2009 .

[95]  Geert Crombez,et al.  Mood-congruent attentional bias in dysphoria: maintained attention to and impaired disengagement from negative information. , 2005, Emotion.

[96]  A. Boissy,et al.  Release from restraint generates a positive judgement bias in sheep , 2010 .

[97]  D. Kahneman,et al.  When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End , 1993 .

[98]  J. Gray.  The neuropsychology of anxiety. , 1985, Issues in mental health nursing.

[99]  K. Sufka,et al.  Pharmacological reversal of cognitive bias in the chick anxiety-depression model , 2012, Neuropharmacology.

[100]  A. Holmes,et al.  Cognitive bias in a non-human primate: husbandry procedures influence cognitive indicators of psychological well-being in captive rhesus macaques , 2012 .

[101]  John P. Meyer,et al.  Two-dimensional affective space: a new approach to orienting the axes. , 2009, Emotion.