Depression has been called the “invisible disability.” Unlike physical illnesses, the emotional anguish and mental fog it causes often go unseen, suffered privately behind a mask of normalcy. Yet depression takes a massive global toll — the WHO ranks it as the #1 cause of disability worldwide.
By current estimates, over 300 million people globally live with depression. But our understanding of this protean condition remains profoundly limited. Diagnosis relies heavily on self-reported symptoms and subjective criteria. Our pharmaceutical treatments were largely discovered by chance over the past 70 years, rather than designed to treat depression’s biological roots, which remain obscure.