Outline The Neurobiology Behind Depression

Clinical Depression is a serious common neurological disorder that can affect anyone from the adolescents to the elderly. Clinical Depression affects the mood, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and symptoms could become severe if left untreated. Clinical Depression is widespread and common, but also misunderstood and we should be well informed on the causes, effects, and treatments of depression.

Major depression is a commonly diagnosed psychological disorder affecting individuals’ ability to feel happiness and peace of mind. Those who suffer experience negative emotions, lack of motivation, changes in behaviour and dysfunctional cognitive symptoms. Depression is classified by the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) as five of more of the listed symptoms present persistently over the same two weeks. One of these symptoms must be depressed mood or loss of interest in previously pleasurable activities. Depression causes disruption to typical daily life such as inability to maintain friendships and jobs. Other symptoms outlined by the DSM-5 include; insomnia, fatigue and recurrent thoughts of death. There is much debate over what exactly causes depression. Biological explanations question hereditary and neurotransmitter factors. While psychological theories include the cognitive ideas of Beck’s negative triad and hopelessness theory. This essay will focus on the ways in which psychological and biological explanations contrast and how their theories can overlap to better understand depression.

The pathophysiology of depression is multifaceted and difficult to pinpoint. Depression can arise from a multitude of precipitating factors, both external and internal to the patient. There are varying theories about the cause of depression, each of which “are based on studies investigating psychosocial stress and stress hormones, neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), neurocircuitry, neurotrophic factors, and circadian rhythms” (Hasler, 2010). Due to the vast immensity of theories available, Woo, & Robinson (2016) recommends that treatment for depression should be tailored to each patient and their disease state individually. In Mary Smith’s case her depression appears

Antidepressant medication is the most popular treatment for depression. Studies have suggested that cognitive therapy of depression might have a significant advantage over medication in preventing relapses or recurrences (Robinson, 2005). Despite the alarming prevalence of depression in society, there is yet no completely adequate explanation as to how or why it occurs (Robinson, 2005). The three major etiological models for understanding depression are cognitive models (based on the work of Beck & Ellis), biological models that link depression to variance in biochemistry (Robinson, 2005), and diathesis-stress models that view depression as the result of a complex interaction of contextual factors and intra-individual factors (Robinson, 2005). There is some evidence to suggest that once treatment-to-remission-from-depression is terminated that pharmacologically treated patients were twice as likely to relapse than patients treated with cognitive therapy (Miller, 1989). Many studies have reported evidence of negative cognitive patterns among depressed individuals. A self-deprecating style, negative attitudes toward the future and negative automatic thoughts frequently are associated with depression (Miller, 1989).

Depression can be defined as a mental disorder that affect the way people think, feel, and act. According to researchers, this mental disorder affects two parts of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. This areas of the brain have different role. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that controls attention and focus whereas the hippocampus responsible for learning

The hippocampus is smaller in patients with depression. The smaller hippocampus is thought to be diminished because of a persistent exposure to stress hormones, like cortisol, which impacts the growth of nerve cells. The hippocampus is highly susceptible to stress, perhaps because the protracted ontogeny or the high amount of glucocorticoid receptors (Uma Rao et al.; 2010). The longer the patient has depression, or the more episodes of depression the patient experiences, the smaller the hippocampal volumes become. Stress correlates with the smaller hippocampus, researchers used twenty-nine patients with depression, twenty-two patients with severe depression and thirty-two control patients. All patients were around the same age, physically healthy, alcohol and drug free, and did not have any other kind of mental illness like bi-polar disorder, autism, or schizophrenia. Structural imagery was used to obtain the images of each patients’ entire brain. Then an image was aligned with the anterior commissure and posterior commissure as well as the borders of the left and right hippocampus. From the MRI scans and using a formula the hippocampal volumes were figured. All of the patients were followed up on, every 6-months for up to five years. The results were conclusive, the severely depressed and the depressed patients had smaller hippocampal volumes when compared to the control subjects. The left hippocampus of the patients was smaller by 4.9% and 4.2%, respectively, while the

In multiple other studies, depression vulnerabilities have been examined independently. However, this study proposes to look at the interrelatedness of cognitive, behavioral and interpersonal depression vulnerabilities at varying levels of depressive symptoms in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) (Rieckmann, Burg, Gerin, Chaplin, Clemow & Davidson, 2006).

Kuiper, Derry, and MacDonald (1982) proposed that depression exerts a negative influence on a wide range of cognitive activities, including memory, inference, and perception with the depressive phase emerging gradually as the depressive

Depression effects different aspects of the anatomy of the brain. A common hypothesis is that depression stems from the limbic system (Carroll et al.; 1976). The limbic system is the part of the brain that regulates emotions, sexual drive, and responses to stimuli like stress; it is the part of the brain that senses “how you feel about stimuli”. The limbic system lies within the temporal lobe and includes the cingulate gyrus, the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the insular cortex, and the hippocampus. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is related to the expression of personality, and is broadly divided into three sections: the dorsolateral portion, the orbitofrontal or paralimbic portion, and the anterior cingulate cortex. The dorsolateral portion of

Depression is a common psychiatric disorder which has a long lasting effect on the mind as well as the body and is the fastest growing cause that tends to decrease productivity, disability, work absistence and high suicide rates among the individuals. Around one in ten patients usually treated in primary health care settings encountered some forms of depression. It can reoccur, tends to be chronic and can be worsen with increasing disability over time if not treated. In recent report 56 million Indians suffer from depression. In worldwide the prevalence of depression is increase 18% from 2005 to 2015. Major depression is less common in older than younger adult which are living in community. The pathogenesis of depression is depending on various

The brain is the control center for one’s thoughts, speech, and the way the body moves. Depression can slow down the way the brain functions. The way the brain has developed may also be a cause for depression. “It is often said that depression results from a chemical imbalance. Research suggests that depression doesn’t spring from simply having too much or too little of certain brain chemicals” (Harvard Health). Depression also impacts how the brain communicates and operates. Patients have “difficulty making decisions, planning, setting priorities, and taking action” (Hellerstein). Headaches and other pain issue can also occur without any explanation. Individuals may feel like they are useless human beings due to all these thoughts created

How is depression established and sustained? When looking at the cognitive perspective on depressive disorders, depression is simply developed and maintained by a client’s way of learning, thinking, and problem solving. One study proposes that there are three qualifiers when looking at the relationship between cognitive processing and depression and they are as follows: “inhibitory processes and deficits in working memory, ruminative responses to negative mood states and negative life events, and the inability to use positive and rewarding stimuli to regulate negative mood” (Gotlib & Joormann, 2010). Depressive disorders and cognitive processing are uniquely intertwined. Cognitive theorists that study depression suggest that “people’s thoughts,

Depression Is a mental disorder which is also a disease: The great depression (Remember) You might be thinking I’m talking about money people but really I’m talking about depression and depression meaning is coming from depress which is putting something down.

For a start, instruments are the power source for the brain. In a TED Ed lesson called “How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain,” Anita Collins mentions, “It turns out that while listening to music engages the brain in some pretty interesting activities, playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout” (Anita Collins). When you are depressed, specific parts of your brain go to sleep causing you to truly feel the symptoms that come along with depression; if you start to play an instrument, your brain will begin to generate more activity in the parts of the brain that depression inflicts. In order to get a better understanding, it is important to note what specific parts of the brain are impacted by this mental illness. In a scholarly journal called, “Where In the Brain Is Depression?,” Mayur Pandya et al inform their audience that,

The severity of depression has been supported through scientific evidence that indicates that depression has a biological basis in the brain of a depressed person along with psychological and social implications. Whilst there are many catalysts in a person’s life that can be identified as a possible root cause of depression, such as stressful life events or the death of a loved one, the issue is far more complex, as the biological triggers of depression are not as easily expressed, such as faulty mood regulation in the brain, vulnerable genetics in the DNA, and other medical problems. Many things are altered in the brain of the depressed person. Firstly, what most understand to be an imbalance in the levels of chemicals that regulate emotions, is in reality far more elaborate. The true issue surrounding the many chemicals involved inside and outside of the nerve cells that undergo numerous chemical reaction which make up the dynamic system that is responsible for mood, perceptions, and the way one experiences life you experiences life can be altered in different ways that affect how one lives. Along with the brains chemicals, the connections between nerve cells called neurons decrease and deteriorate, meaning the