This book provides an overview on the neurobiology of major depression. It begins by focusing on findings from genetic studies in patients with major depression and stress, moves on to dysregulation of the stress hormone axis in animal models and patients with depression, covers clinical studies addressing questions of co-morbidity between depression and cardiovascular diseases, pain and fatigue, and deals with possible predictors of treatment response and antiglucocorticoids in the treatment of affective disorders. All contributions in this collection are very interesting and reflect important steps in the research of major depression. The reader receives a good insight into laboratory studies that were conducted in order to develop an understanding that might result in new pharmaceutical developments. For example some articles attempt to answer whether depression, stress and inflammation alter hippocampal apoptosis and neurogenesis or whether the medial prefrontal cortex is involved in mediating resistance and vulnerability to the impact of adverse events. Neuroendocrinological and neuroimmunological studies are then summarized in special issues, which fall in the main research areas of the editors and thus occupy a good part of the book. Neuroimaging is also mentioned in a contribution on differences between bipolar disorder and depression. Studies using nuclear techniques like PET or SPECT or studies using MRI neuroimaging to predict treatment response or to assess stress effects in patients with major depression are unfortunately not reviewed; however, this does not detract from the quality of the book and it might even be advantageous to focus more on the above-mentioned methods. The reader develops an interesting new and different view on research in depression. One omission in the book is how findings from neurobiology might translate into psychotherapy or at least which neurobiological effects of psychotherapy are already known; however, this topic might be sufficient material for a book in its own right.

In summary the book is extremely interesting and shows how basic laboratory findings might be translated to the patient population. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to those interested in the biological background of depression. The book does not seek to give advice on treatment or to propose new treatment strategies based on neurobiological findings, which might be a drawback for clinicians, but it is made clear that translational neuroscience in depression has moved forward in recent years. It is therefore a book that reports the state of the art from experimental and laboratory neurobiological studies.