Hyperactivity in the Depressed Brain

Major depression affects an estimated 19 million American adults and often leads to suicide. It is also known to cause a number of symptoms such as: anxiety, poor attention and concentration, memory issues, and sleep disturbances. Needless to say, this is a serious condition that researchers are constantly studying in order to unravel the mystery of how it can cause so many symptoms.

UCLA researchers have suggested that perhaps the multiple symptoms of depression could be linked to a malfunction involving brain networks (connections that link different brain regions). UCLA researchers have shown that people with depression show increased connections throughout areas in the brain compared to “healthy” brains. The brain must be able to regulate its connections in order to function properly. This includes not only the synchronizing, but also the desynchronizing of areas in the brain. The depressed brain loses its ability to turn connections off. This inability of the brain to regulate connections could be the underlying cause of the many symptoms of depression.

These researchers have conducted one of the largest studies of its kind, on 121 adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder. They measured the synchronization of electrical signals from the brain using a new method called “weighted network analysis”. The results showed that depressed brains had increased synchronization across all frequencies of electrical activity. This means depressed brains have abnormalities in numerous different brain networks. The area of the brain that showed the most abnormal connections was the prefrontal cortex (area of the brain that controls mood and solves problems). The image above shows a depressed brain (left) and a normal brain (right). The increased red in the prefrontal cortex of the depressed brain represents hyperactivity within this area. This new study is pertinent to the treatment and reversal of depression. Researchers say that the next step is to determine how to return brains back to their normal level of connectivity.

I think this article is very interesting because it looks at the problem of depression in a completely new way. It shows how even if you have all the correctly functioning components of a system, if it’s not wired properly it won’t function correctly.

This article can be accessed at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120227162656.htm