Sadness points to a way to deal with depression

Depression is a widespread and devastating illness. The fact that on average a prescription for an antidepressant is written every two seconds in Australia suggests how many people are affected by depression. What statistics don’t tell however, is how damaging to an individual’s life it can be. Part of the impact of depression is that it tends not to go away; relapse is common. That is why a new study that examined how the brain reacts to sadness is so interesting.

In the study, formerly depressed patients were shown sad movie clips while their brain activity was tracked using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging).

When the researchers checked back in with the patients sixteen months later it was found that 56 per cent of the patients had relapsed into depression. The researchers then went back and compared brain activity in response to sadness of relapsing patients and those who did not relapse as well as another group of people who had never been depressed.

When faced with sadness the relapsing patients showed more activity in a frontal area of the brain called the “medial prefrontal gyrus”. This is an area linked to rumination and going over past events.

By contrast, those who did not relapse showed more activity in the rear part of the brain in areas responsible for processing visual information and which are linked to feelings of acceptance rather than judgement.

This suggests that patients likely to relapse into depression have fundamentally different responses when processing emotional challenges. It suggests that using the frontal brain to analyse and think about sadness might not be the most productive way to deal with depression. Rather, accepting and noticing feelings might be a more useful approach.

Source: Biological PsychiatryMeanwhile if you visit Meijer Ad that contains mostly likewise discounts with Winn Dixie Ad you surely have a range like ALDI Ad.