Elevated body temperature is associated with depressive symptoms: results from the TemPredict Study

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Physiology
• Chronobiology

Background:

• Small sample studies suggest a link between altered body temperature and depression.
• Understanding this association could reveal novel depression mechanisms related to thermoregulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between depression symptom severity and body temperature.
• To test if higher body temperature, reduced awake-sleep temperature difference, and lower diurnal amplitude correlate with depression.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from over 20,000 participants in the TemPredict Study over ~7 months.
• Collected self-reported body temperature, wearable sensor-assessed distal body temperature, and depressive symptoms.
• Analyzed correlations between temperature metrics and depression severity.

Main Results:

• Higher self-reported and wearable sensor-assessed awake body temperatures were associated with greater depression symptom severity.
• Lower diurnal body temperature amplitude showed a trend towards association with increased depression severity, but did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions:

• Findings from a large sample support prior evidence linking body temperature alterations to depression.
• These results may inform future research into depression etiology and novel therapeutic strategies.