Researchers have uncovered patterns of electrical brain activity in depression-prone mice. If replicated in humans, the findings may help to predict a person's vulnerability to the condition.

Depression is more common than we may think. In fact, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimate that more than 16 million adults in the United States have experienced at least one major depressive episode in their lives.

Deemed "the leading cause of disability" among U.S. individuals aged 15 to 44, depression is a debilitating psychiatric disorder whose neurological underpinnings are being slowly unraveled by more and more studies.

A new study has now investigated the electrical brain patterns of mice subjected to stressful circumstances. The findings helped to create a "map" of depression that enabled the scientists to differentiate between rodents that were prone to the condition and those that were not.

The research was supervised by Dr. Kafui Dzirasa, who is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC, and the findings were published in the journal Cell.