For generations, the search for the roots of anxiety and depression has centered on neurons, the brain's most celebrated communicators. A UCLA research team has quietly shifted that gaze toward astrocytes — the brain's supporting cells — discovering that chronic stress physically shortens their antenna-like primary cilia in the amygdala, altering how these cells sense and respond to the world around them. What gives this finding unusual weight is that an already-approved multiple sclerosis drug appears capable of reversing these changes in mice, and that human brain tissue from people with dep