Table of contents:
- Chronic depression symptoms may persist after you recover
- How does depression affect the brain?
- How to treat depression symptoms as early as possible to prevent brain damage?
Until recently, many experts and neurologists claimed that chronic depression was caused by a change in the brain. But it is now evident that brain damage does not cause depression, but quite the opposite: chronic depression causes brain damage.
Chronic depression symptoms may persist after you recover
Common symptoms of depression include mood swings, which are also accompanied by impaired cognitive function - difficulty remembering, difficulty making decisions, planning, prioritizing, and taking action. Brain imaging studies using MRI scanning show that these general depressive symptoms are associated with abnormalities in certain areas of the brain, including the hippocampus (memory center), anterior cingulate (brain conflict resolution area), and the prefrontal cortex (which is involved with planning and executing activities).
Depression is considered a chronic stress-related illness. Chronic depression sufferers are known to often have a smaller hippocampus size than healthy people. The hippocampus is an area of the brain that has an important role in the formation of new memories by processing memories for long-term storage.
Now a study published in the journal Moleculum Psychiatry has provided strong evidence that recurring chronic depression does shrink the hippocampus, causing loss of emotional and behavioral function. Thus, a depressed person still has difficulty remembering and concentrating even after recovering from his illness. Nearly about 20 percent of chronic depression patients never fully recover.
How does depression affect the brain?
Depression increases cortisol production in the brain. Cortisol is a stress hormone that is toxic to cells in the hippocampus. Long-term overexposure to cortisol is suspected of causing a shrinkage of the hippocampus, which in turn causes memory problems or difficulty remembering.
But when the hippocampus shrinks, it's not just trouble remembering Facebook passwords. You also change all kinds of other behaviors related to your memory. Hence, hippocampus shrinkage is also associated with loss of normal day-to-day function.
This is because the hippocampus is also connected to many areas of the brain that regulate how we feel and respond to stress. The hippocampus is connected to the amygdala which controls our experience of fear. In people with chronic depression, the amygdala is enlarged and more active as a result of long-term exposure to excess cortisol.
An enlarged and hyperactive amygdala, combined with other abnormal activity in the brain, can cause disturbances in sleep and activity patterns. It also causes the body to release a number of hormones and other chemicals, and leads to other complications of depression.
How to treat depression symptoms as early as possible to prevent brain damage?
According to Professor Poul Videbech, a psychiatry specialist at the Center for Psychiatric Research at Aarhus University Hospital, depression results in up to a ten percent shrinkage of the hippocampus which leaves an imprint in the brain, citing Nordic Science. Videbech continued, in some cases, this reduction can continue when the depression is over.
The good news is that the hippocampus is a relative area of the brain, where new nerves can grow. This is why doctors and other health professionals constantly emphasize the importance of treating depressive symptoms as early as possible. Treatment of depression is associated with normalizing mood, behavior, and many other brain disorders associated with depression.
Increased cortisol levels due to depression are known to inhibit the formation of new nerves, but depression medications and other depression therapy can counteract this negative effect. Antidepressants work to reverse hippocampus shrinkage and treat the mood and memory problems they cause, by changing patterns of brain activity and balancing the amount of cortisol and other chemicals in the brain. This all then promotes the growth of new brain cells. Balancing the levels of chemicals in the body can also help relieve symptoms of chronic depression.
It is important to note that new nerve growth in the hippocampus can take up to six weeks for complete completion; and this is at the same time required for the efficacy of some monoaminergic antidepressants (eg SSRIs) to have an optimal effect.
