A shot of genes in the brain might help treat most grave conditions of depression, as explained by scientists.

It is stated that depression lingers one in five Britons at some point in their life, in case of women it is twice as likely when compared to men.

Anti-depressants seem hopeless for everyone as it causes side effects such of suicide and suicidal thoughts to self harm, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, headaches and vomiting. The present method to eliminate severe and chronic depression is something which might prove beneficial and at the same time help treat the patient.

US researchers associated with the study claimed that lack of a brain protein called p11 causes depression.

Experimental mice that generated the protein which aids in maintaining brain chemicals are the key to a better mood, one gets depressed, the journal Science Translational Medicine reports. It was observed that injected the genes that make the protein lifted their mood which was clearly visible when compared to other mice.

The authors, from Weill-Cornell Medical Centre and Rockefeller University, both in New York, saw the same with respect to p11 protein that plays a vital role in the human form of the disease.

Nobel prize winner Dr Michael Kaplitt said: ‘Together, these studies provide strong evidence that maintaining adequate levels of this particular protein, p11, in this pleasure-reward area of the brain may be central to preventing or treating depression. We potentially have a novel therapy to target what we now believe is one root cause of human depression’.