Femke Lamers

TL;DR: Comorbidity rates in anxiety and depressive disorders were very high, indicating that it is advisable to assess both disorders routinely regardless of the primary reason for consultation, especially important since comorbid patients showed a specific vulnerability pattern, with more childhood trauma, neuroticism, and higher severity and duration of symptoms.

TL;DR: The heterogeneity of the depression concept seems to play a differentiating role: metabolic syndrome and inflammation up-regulations appear more specific to the atypical depression subtype, whereas hypercortisolemia appears more specific for melancholic depression.

TL;DR: It is confirmed that chronic forms of the two major subtypes of depression are associated with different biological correlates with inflammatory and metabolic dysregulation in atypical depression and HPA-axis hyperactivity in melancholic depression.

TL;DR: Their differential course trajectory justifies separate consideration of pure depression, pure anxiety and comorbid anxiety-depression in clinical practice and psychiatric nosology.

TL;DR: In this article, the heterogeneity of depression in the current classification system remains a point of discussion in the psychiatric field, despite previous efforts to subclassify depressive disorders, and data-driven techniques may help to come to a more empirically based classification.