Is Depression Bringing You Down?

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In our day to day lives, especially in university settings, we hear the phrase, “I’m so stressed,” more times than we can remember. It seems to be something people say all the time without really understanding the depth behind the claim. Depression affects more than 14 million people in the U.S. Almost all people get sad from time to time, but depression is characterized by a longer than normal duration of this morose feeling. Depression can be caused by a plethora of things including abuse, conflict, death, loss, or even serious illness. Even with depression being so pervasive, there are still many countries and societies that do not acknowledge it as something that can impact the work and the overall well-being of a person. But as the awareness of depression and its impacts continues to increase, so does research on trying to find cures for it. Finding a single cure for depression would be immensely difficult, considering that there are numerous types and degrees of depression that people can feel. This is a massive field in neuroscience that continues to grow and pose questions that have yet to be solved.

Recently, I had the opportunity to learn more about the physiological basis and the diagnosis of depression from Dr. Rebecca Silton, an assistant professor and researcher at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Silton talked about one of her papers titled, Low Positive Affect is Associated with Reduced Prefrontal Cortex Activity in Remitted Depression. She covered a lot of interesting topics, including some of the clinical definitions of depression and the requirements for being clinically designated as depressed. She explained that one of the recent requirements for being diagnosed with depression is that you have to experience 5 of the 9 criteria listed, for two weeks. Some of these criteria include things like experiencing anhedonia, lack of vitality, etc. She then continued to talk about positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) and how high NA is common in patients with depression as well as anxiety, while low PA is distinctive to depression. After talking about the different possible units of analysis that are used as models of depression today, she talked about her research studying activity in the prefrontal cortex and low positive effect. After discussing her results and how they came to the conclusion stated in the title of the paper, she also talked about how people with depression have more a waves in the left hemisphere of the prefrontal cortex, which led to her discussion of some possibilities for future research.

One thing that really impacted me was when Dr. Silton showed a scene from a TED Talk by Andrew Solomon, where he discussed the crushing weight and meaninglessness that he felt when he was depressed. This reminded me of an article that I read in the New York Times titled, Opening Up About Depression, where the author talks about how he came upon his realization that he was depressed. He mentioned that someone told him, “You never know where depression lives,” after the unexpected suicide of one of his close friends. He then went on to discuss, as Dr. Silton did in her lecture, the criteria for diagnosing depression that all health professionals should be aware of. Furthermore, he went on to talk about the shame and stigma that he felt about his depression. This related to Dr. Silton’s lecture in that it completed it. Dr. Silton mostly talked about the hypothetical sign of a person with low positive effect, while in the article I was able to read direct accounts from someone with low positive effect themselves. It was also very impactful when Dr. Silton talked about the decreasing ages at which students are starting to harm themselves as a result of depression (starting from 7^th and 8^th grade). The (simplified) answer to this quandary can be found in article, when the author states that the first step in trying to get out of your depression is to accept it and to talk to people about your problems. Finally, Dr. Silton’s lecture also overlapped with the article in that they both referenced the same author, Andrew Solomon, who eloquently discusses his experiences with depression.

Overall, I learned quite a bit about depression from Dr. Silton’s lecture and I am glad there were so many commonalities between it and The New York Times article, Opening Up About Depression, because together they gave me an overall perspective of the experiences someone goes through when they are depressed.

References:

"Depression Complications." Depression Health Center. WebMD, 2013. Web. 03 May 2016. <http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-complications>.

Petrow, Steven. "Opening Up About Depression." Well. The New York Times, 08 Feb. 2016. Web. 03 May 2016. <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/opening-up-about-depression/>.

Reynolds, Gretechen. "Meditation Plus Running as a Treatment for Depression." Well. The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 03 May 2016. <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/meditation-plus-running-as-a-treatment-for-depression/>.