Shelly Fan in Singularity Hub:
Depression doesn’t mean you’re always feeling low. Sure, most times it’s hard to crawl out of bed or get motivated. Once in a while, however, you feel a spark of your old self—only to get sucked back into an emotional black hole. There’s a reason for this variability. Depression changes brain connections, even when the person is feeling okay at the moment. Scientists have long tried to map these alternate networks. But traditional brain mapping technologies average multiple brains, which doesn’t capture individual brain changes.
This week, an international team took a peek into the depressed mind. With brain imaging technology called precision functional mapping, they captured the brains of 135 people with depression for over a year and a half. The largest brain mapping study of the disorder to date, the results revealed a curious change in the brain’s connections in people with depression—a neural network, usually involved in attention, nearly doubled its size compared to those without the condition. The increase remained even during periods when the person no longer felt low. The brain signature isn’t just a neurobiological sign of depression—it could also be a predictor. When observed in the brain imaging data of nearly 12,000 children starting from nine years old, the expanded network predicted the onset of depression later in adolescence.
More here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.