Depression Forums
Depression Related Forums => Depression Central => Topic started by: Bewildered on November 06, 2011, 01:33:48 PM
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This is part of an interview from Charlie Rose given by Dr Thomas Insel. I found it quite intersting.
When you look at depression as a brain disorder what you find is that there are certain areas that are clearly active or over active or sometimes under active. The one that has gotten the most attention recently is an area that is in the front of teh brain called Area 25. This is an area that is deep in the area of the frontal lobe. It doesn't have more of a name at the moment as it is a bit of a mystery. We didn't know anything about it until we started doing imaging scans on people with depression.Although it's not the wjole story it is an imporatnt node in the depression circuit. The rest of the pre frontal cortex is important for decision making,judgement and planning for the future. Other areas that are involved and connected such as The Amygdala which we think of as the hub of emotion. The sea horse shaped area called the Hippocampus which is critical for memory and then an area called teh Insula which is an area that is very important for bodily somatic sensations and may be the reason why people with depression often feel like thay are dead inside.no vitalioty like there is nothing there. The hypothalamus is another area that is clearly involved and is probably the reason for the loss of drive whether is it the se drive or appetite. All of these together form a very simple circuit and all of them at one time or another can be over/under active in different people.
These are all part of the circuit and there are other areas involved but the these seem to show up over and over again when people with depression are given MRI's. They are areas taht are important because the treatments we have whether they are psycho therapies or medication prob hit different parts of the circuit. Amazingly in the last few years it has become clear that if you go in and actually change the firing rate of area 25 itself...that in itself can treat depression in people who haven't been helped by medication or psychotherapy. Using a deep brain treatment you can go into an area taht looks like it is over active and by stimulating near it you actually reduce the firing rate you can reduce it's activity and people will respond accordingly with a reduction in depressive symptoms and some people have a true remission of the disorder.
This is a very powerful demonstration that depression can be thought of as a circuitry problem like an arrhythmia and that by changing the rhythm yu can get improvement in the symptoms.It shows that depression is not just one disorder but many disorders taht may share common symptoms and that different parts of the circuit could be more or less active in different people.
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Anyway, I found this an intersting way to look at depression and thought it was a great description of all the areas of the brain that are affected and you can see by those areas all the symptoms we see in those we love.
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Thanks :)