Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Low Positive Affect in Depression


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Depression is a mental disorder whose symptoms vary widely within each individual. Each person with depression expresses the symptoms differently or express entirely different symptoms from one another. Dr. Rebecca Silton from Loyola University Chicago, introduced my neuroscience class about her research that looks into anhedonia, a common symptom of depression. Anhedonia is the “reduction of in ability to experience pleasure in daily life experiences” (Meehl, 1962). More specifically her research focused on the relationship between low positive affect of anhedonia and depression. Her findings showed that there is a positive correlation between low positive affect and depression, but this is also associated with low activity in the left prefrontal cortex due to high alpha in the prefrontal cortex with those that have remitted depression. Although the causes of this phenomena are not yet understood, it is important to note this finding because it can potentially lead to new ways of treating depression. During Dr. Silton’s lecture, she referenced a TED talk video where Andrew Solomon talked about his experience with depression. Andrew Solomon said, “The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality” which demonstrates how anhedonia’s positive affect is very prevalent in depression like how Dr. Silton suggests.
Researchers in Binghamton University were interested in studying the differences between people who are in remission for depression and people with no history of depression. In their study they showed 160 women, 60 who have had depression, pictures of faces that expressed either a neutral, sad, happy, or angry expression. What they found was that the women with a history of depression were more likely to be drawn to angry facial expressions compared to the women with no history of depression, and these women were also at a greater risk to develop depression again. They found no differences between the two groups of women and the attention paid to sad or happy faces. This can be related back to the fact that low positive affect is a key symptom in depression. Although other characteristics of depression are important, anhedonia seems to be a great interest in Dr. Silton’s study and that conducted by researchers in Binghamton University.
Dr. Silton and the researchers of Binghamton University believe that the way people see the world around them influences their mental health, whether they have depression or not. Understanding low positive affect in depression can help treat depression. One cannot just simply be happy, they should also have vitality. One thing I took away from Dr. Silton’s lecture was that we should try to smile more often or have a positive attitude in order to uplift ourselves. This method, however, may not be easy for those suffering from depression as we saw from Binghamton’s University research. Which is why it is important to understand the effects of low positive affect in depression.

References
Silton, L. R., Polnaszek, K. L., Dickson, A. D, Miller, A. G., Heller, W. Low positive affect is associated with reduced prefrontal cortical activity in remitted depression. Psychophysiology, 1-31.
Association for Psychological Science. “Attention to angry faces may predict future depression”. 16 June 2015. < http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/attention-to-angry-faces-may-predict-future-depression.html>
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