Thinking Beyond Science

There is one in four chance that depression will affect you in some stage in your life. It’s like a black cloak, you feel like your brain is crushed, all you want is to be on your own, isolated. Only someone who has had it, knows how hard and paralyzing the depression can be. It is terrifying, person suffering from it is in a state of turmoil despair.

Even being so common, people prefer to keep it to them themselves. It is because of the stigma, people with depression are judged to be weak. Some people even go so far to think that it does not exist. If your parents were directly affected by depression, there is a chance that you will too.

The part of the brain responsible for memory and emotion is the Hippocampus. It is here that depression shows up. The hippocampus is depressed people behave differently from hippocampus in those without the illness. Hippocampus is found to be smaller in people suffering from depression. There is a striking decrease in the amount of grey matter, that’s the part of the brain that’s got nerve cells and the connections between them.

Electroconvulsive therapy(ECT) induces a seizure in brain. It is a massive discharge of neurons in the cortex, moving in a wave. When you repetitively go through ECT, it’s signalling to the different parts of the brain that are responsible for maintenance of mood, to produce normal amount of receptors on the neuron so that  they can go back to normal, like a computer reboot to brain. It can be compared to defibrillating a heart.

Vagus nerve simulator(VNS) is an experimental treatment, even for very severe cases. It is like a pacemaker planted under the skin, that sends a signal to the brain. Anti-depressants are one of the most prescribed drugs in the world. It is important to have adjust your lifestyle to cope with depression along with anti-depressants like if you are diabetic, you would be careful about what you eat. Doctors scale depression from mild to moderate to severe.    



Amygdala, is a tiny area of the the brain which is like a computer hub. Like hippocampus, amygdala also behaves differently in depressed people. Depressed people’s brain exaggerate negative images, they lose perspective and part of their brain is more sensitive to negativity.  

In depression, the pre frontal cortex of  the brain goes dull and silent. The brain produces too much of stress hormone called cortisol. Few milligrams of anti – depressants, can quickly and radically effect neural transmitter Serotonin which helps with the depression. 

When you are traumatized, you live in the past, you live the past event. It’s nearly like you are stuck in the past. This is the basis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD).