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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/depressions-evolutionary/

This article that I found relates to what we have been discussing this week in class, because this article talks about how depression is not a malfunction but it is an adaptation. Depression is later defined as an adaptation, a real cost and state of mind which brings real costs, but also brings real benefits. This article then goes in dept into why depression is thought of as an adaptation. It talks about a research that was conducted on a molecule in the brain called 5HT1A receptor, and this receptor binds to another brain molecule called serotonin. Serotonin is what the antidepressant medications usually targets In the study they found that rodents who did not have the receptor had very little depression symptoms. The rodents receptor and the human receptor are 99% identical, so they concluded that the 5HT1A receptor is very important for natural selection to preserve it, and that the ability to have depression would seem to be important then.