The tears of people with major depressive disorder, or clinical depression, have a different chemical composition than the tears of nondepressed people, according to a recent study that highlighted tear fluid\u00b4s potential for the simple, rapid diagnosis of mood disorders.<\/p>\n
Tear fluid is considered a source of biomarkers, or biological markers, which are seen as indicators of normal biological processes that can be objectively measured, similar to blood pressure or heart rate. In a\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0published in the\u00a0Journal of Psychiatric Research<\/em>, a group of researchers from Slovakia explored how the analysis of tear fluid may facilitate the diagnosis of mood disorders, such as depression or bipolar disorder, and has potential for future integration in bioinformatic pipelines and personalized medicine.<\/p>\n The study,\u00a0\u201eTear fluid biomarkers in major depressive disorder: Potential of spectral methods in biomarker discovery\u201c<\/em>, was authored by K. Kraj\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1, D. Kondrakhova, J. Ma\u0161lankov\u00e1, M. Stup\u00e1k, I. Talian, T. Kim\u00e1kov\u00e1, V. Komanick\u00fd, K. Dubayov\u00e1, V. Tome\u010dkov\u00e1 (Pavol Jozef \u0160af\u00e1rik University), E. Seman\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1, E. P\u00e1lov\u00e1, D. Brezno\u0161\u010d\u00e1kov\u00e1, J. Seman\u010d\u00edk (L. Pasteur University Hospital and EPAMED s.r.o) and\u00a0K. Zaku\u0165ansk\u00e1<\/strong>,\u00a0N. Toma\u0161ovi\u010dov\u00e1<\/strong>\u00a0(Institute of Experimental Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences).<\/p>\n