Depression Damages Parts of the Brain, Research Concludes

originally posted by: Temudjiin
a reply to: Reverbs

I mean the brain will go into a depressive state when the body suffers from trauma, withdrawal etc. where did the depression occur from, I don't think a breakup leads to brain damage. But I think toxic food leads to brain damage then depression

No depression does lead to brain damage.. You might want to look into how emotions affect gene expression.
A breakup is not what I would consider depression. We are talking long term. You are talking about being sad. It's not the same thing. I was so depressed I couldn't be sad.

Maybe read the study.. ?

But this is the key to so many things.. DNA is not set in stone..
It's exciting if you know what to do.. I you get it..

So many experiments you could read.

People change their brain by playing violin.. They get a big growth in one spot. This is not due to toxins or the lack thereof.


Harvard

New scientific research shows that environmental influences can actually affect whether and how genes are expressed. Thus, the old ideas that genes are “set in stone” or that they alone determine development have been disproven. In fact, scientists have discovered that early experiences can determine how genes are turned on and off and even whether some are expressed at all. Therefore, the experiences children have early in life—and the environments in which they have them—shape their developing brain architecture and strongly affect whether they grow up to be healthy, productive members of society.

There are so many links but I could sit here and try to explain all day..
And if you don't want to hear it you will not.

a reply to: Reverbs

I'm interested in the cause to depression. To make a fire you need three things. It just doesn't pop up

originally posted by: Temudjiin
a reply to: Reverbs

I'm interested in the cause to depression. To make a fire you need three things. It just doesn't pop up

I know first hand.. It can come from abusive parents. That's all it takes.
You lose hope. I already explained how emotions affect gene expression.. Chemicals... You get this right?

then I got my hope back and guess what? My depression went away over a few years. I was too depressed to even be suicidal because that would have been taking action. I just had nothing..

If you read the study I have all the effects it talks about, and no other reason to have had these effects happen.

What did you like about the study? Which part do you not like?

www.healthline.com...

Negative early-life experiences, such as abuse or the loss of a parent, shape how the brain copes with future stress.

Methylation is a biochemical process that essentially turns genes ‘on’ or ‘off’ by affecting whether genes can be expressed,” said Sarah Romens, lead author on the study, in an interview with Healthline. “We observed that maltreated children had more methylation of [NR3C1 promoter] sites ... compared to non-maltreated children. This suggests that maltreated children have less expression of NR3C1, which would likely result in production of fewer glucocorticoid receptors.”

After cortisol has docked with about 50 percent of the glucocorticoid receptors in the brain's hippocampus, any more cortisol will cause performance to decline. You become stressed, nervous, or irritable, and have a harder time focusing. With high enough stress levels, you experience anxiety and panic. Long-term exposure to high stress levels causes other wear and tear on the body as well, including wear on the heart and a weakened immune system.

I know all too well..

Being happy is more important than people want to think..

a reply to: Reverbs

So you have abusive parents, as a child do you know right from wrong, cause right from wrong are ideals. If they hit a child, submissive behavior, lack of nutrition, brain doesn't develop, cortisol does affect the brain and does damage to it. But cortisol comes under stress, stress leads to depression.

A million faces for a name.

Causation flows in and out, not point to point.

originally posted by: Temudjiin
a reply to: Reverbs

So you have abusive parents, as a child do you know right from wrong, cause right from wrong are ideals. If they hit a child, submissive behavior, lack of nutrition, brain doesn't develop, cortisol does affect the brain and does damage to it. But cortisol comes under stress, stress leads to depression.

you assume way too much. I had great nutrition. And right and wrong doesn't even matter. You brought that up not me. Being depressed came from hopelessness. Nothing could be at rest. Ever... Add in some neglect.
You are imagining me as something I am not.


psychcentral.com...

Study on Loneliness

In one study, his team focused on loneliness. They analyzed genome-wide activity in 14 “people who chronically experienced high or low levels of subjective social isolation.”

This identified 209 genes that were expressed differently in the lonely or non-lonely individuals, including genes that oversee immune activation and blood cell function. Certain genes that dampen bodily inflammation were less effective in lonely people, while pro-inflammatory genes were overexpressed.

“This data provides the first indication that human genome-wide transcriptional activity is altered in association with a social epidemiological risk factor,” writes the research team in the journal Genome Biology. This provides “a functional genomic explanation for elevated risk of inflammatory disease in individuals who experience chronically high levels of subjective social isolation.”

You do understand what science is right?
opinions are for the uninitiated.

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
A million faces for a name.

Causation flows in and out, not point to point.

exactly

a reply to: Reverbs

If the studies weren't done in mengele fashion they are just theoretical paradigms. Social isolation, what did the lack, sunlight, nutrition, sleep, glands regulate most of the nutrition, amino acids. Social isolation leads to lack of replicating pattern for a child to survive.

a reply to: Kapusta

It makes sense to me. It seems as though scientists are FINALLY finding empirical ways of looking at specific regions to determine actual mental aberrations, as opposed to just listing a few symptoms and throwing people drugs like candy. It's important to get this empirical information to prove one way or the other.

One of most cutting-edge psychiatrists in the area of brain-imaging is Dr. Daniel Amen. He does what is called SPECT:

Dr. Daniel Amen

Over the last 23 years, Amen Clinics has built the world’s largest database of brain SPECT scans which has revolutionized how we help our patients and teach the world about brain health. SPECT stands for single photon emission computed tomography. It is a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity patterns. It is widely used to study heart, liver, thyroid, bone, and brain problems.

Amen Clinics has performed nearly 100,000 brain SPECT scans on patients ranging in age from 9 months to 101 years, and have scanned many healthy people interested in learning more about their brains.

According to the Practice Guidelines of the American College of Radiology, common uses of brain SPECT include: the evaluation of symptomatic traumatic brain injury (especially in the absence of CT or MRI findings), evaluation of patients with suspected dementia, presurgical localization of seizure foci, and the detection and evaluation of cerebral vascular disease.1

With the depth of our experience at the Amen Clinics, we have added additional indications for the use of brain SPECT: evaluating complex or resistant psychiatric issues, subtyping ADD, anxiety and depression, assessing memory problems, aggression, school, job and relationship failure, substance abuse, and optimizing brain function.


"Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."

- George Bernard Shaw

a reply to: jonnywhite

I believe there is a part of the brain called the cyngulate gyrus that has been imaged to be hyper overactive in various conditions such as depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive. From what I understand, it is largely mediated or lubricated, so to speak, by serotonin. When there is a chemical imbalance, which can actually occur from misdiagnosis and drug side effects, or lack of social/physical intimacy (love, sex, companionship etc), this region becomes overactive and people experience rumination, holding grudges, etc. It is another part of Dr. Daniel Amen's work where he measures blood flow in the brain to determine which areas are either under active or over active. He's one of the only guys doing this right now. I saw him on PBS, which is usually always cutting edge. That was also the channel that put Joseph Campbell's work to wide popularity as well.

My friend Jonathan Zap is really into transpersonal psychology and is also on a disability pension and is homosexual and quite used to a solitary lifestyle due to societal repressions and such. So he has a website where he shares a lot of his insights into various psychological difficulties. This issue of rumination is quite important and can be very severe, especially for certain types of people. Ironically, the disability lifestyle i.e. too much spare time on one's hands, actually compounds this rumination. He calls it 'psychic entropy' or mental ping-pong. The mind basically starts to cycle and eat itself! And since neural pathways can be set up, it is basically a constant reinforcement to do this activity, like feedback in an amplifier. So he does recommend distractions, constructive activities - even things like having audio books handy to focus on during long stretches of time like driving or whatever.

And of course, meditation...

originally posted by: Reverbs
Actually all the smart depressed people I know have memory issues. My brother can't even remember what he's doing as he does it.

Depression is quite common among more intelligent people. That's not to say they're the only ones that get depressed but like most other mental illnesses the more intelligent you are the more likely you are to be suffering from something.

wow! finaly the mad scientists are geting some ware.
and the can looks great... what was it we are talking about again?

a reply to: Aazadan

but like most other mental illnesses the more intelligent you are the more likely you are to be suffering from something.

More likely than what? Exactly?

You're seriously claiming that the less intelligent you are the better off? The less likely to be ailed?

How are things going for you? Pretty well?

originally posted by: Phage
More likely than what? Exactly?

You're seriously claiming that the less intelligent you are the better off? The less likely to be ailed?

How are things going for you? Pretty well?

There's other issues with less intelligence such as.... being less intelligent.

Once you go a bit above the average intelligence range though, mental illnesses of various forums become much more common.

As far as I'm aware, no one seems to know why but the correlation has been observed for thousands of years. Genius and madness go hand in hand.

Also, it's usually people of moderate intelligence that end up as highly paid CEO's. It's the people of high intelligence that work as moderately paid employees of those CEO's.

a reply to: Aazadan

Once you go a bit above the average intelligence range though, mental illnesses of various forums become much more common.

That's quite a claim.

The jury is still out regarding a positive relationship between high IQ and a greater risk of developing depression and mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Whether there is a positive link or not, all the research in this area should serve to sensitize people to the reality that geniuses are not freaks of nature – they just cannot help being the way they are.

brainblogger.com...

A link between high IQ and bipolar disorder has been proposed for many years, but the scientific evidence has so far been weak, say researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK.

psychcentral.com...

I was depressed for several years, planned to suicide a few times but I always found hope at the last moment (or was i coward?) I think that kind of thing sticks with you for live it just that sometimes the switch its off. I really wish one could stop that feeling because is not nice at all. All i can tell you is that there is always hope and light for those who seek it.

a reply to: Aazadan

Yea, so that's not really true.

What the data shows is that environment trumps IQ in terms of success when you're poor. When you reach middle class, IQ is the highest indicator of success. In the rich, the higher the IQ, the more likely for even greater success.

No way you're gonna convince me that CEO's are less intelligent than the average employee below them. They have to be not only highly intelligent, but also at least moderately emotionally intelligent. CEOs who lack emotional intelligence are bound to destroy the organization eventually.

There has been studies which show both positive, and negative correlation between IQ and various mental issues. The gist I get is that they are unrelated overall.

Update: Article on the study:

People who have long-term, recurrent depression eventually develop smaller hippocampi in their brains, according to research published in Molecular Psychiatry. And University of Sydney psychiatrist Ian Hickie, a co-author of the study, told The Guardian that there exists "a good bit of evidence" that antidepressants provide a neuroprotective effect against such hippocampal shrinkage. Hickie apparently did not clarify to The Guardian, however, that the particular study he'd just co-authored had actually found the exact opposite -- that antidepressants were associated with greater hippocampal shrinkage.

cont...

Critical commenters prompted the Conversation article author to follow up again with Hickie and then change the article text to indicate that this "brain damage" was readily "reversible." Meanwhile, in The Guardian article, Hickie clarified that the hippocampus wasn't so much actually being damaged or losing cells as a result of depression, but temporarily losing "connections between cells", in the same way that can happen to anyone who might "sit in a room doing nothing" a lot.

Source

a reply to: dreamingawake

They increase BDNF expression the brain.

anti's
So does ECT

www.jneurosci.org...

Plenty of foods and lifestyle changes do the same.

The second quoted paragraph is common sense. If you are in a stimulating environment learning new things, you create more dense neural networks. It's reverse would be the law of conservation in action. Use it or lose it.

Damned choices getting in the way with our copouts. Boo!

Sometimes anti's don't work on people. Brainscans can show either marked hypoactivation in particular brain regions, else hyperactivation in general.

I postulate that some high IQ depressed are genetically predetermined for high BDNF expression, rapidly learn as a result, and must prune connections via depression more than the average. think, cyclothymia

Getting rid of my bad memories now I like that part. Depression is devastating.