Category: Depression

Why depressed people cannot hold on to positive memories and emotions.

Depressed people have 30 percent worse memory on certain tasks, research finds.

Depressed mood stops people from holding information in their memory.

This may be why depressed people can find it hard to hold on to positive memories and emotions.

It can also help to explain how depression develops and persists over time.

In depressed people, memory is easily ‘hijacked’ by depressing thoughts, to the exclusion of all else.

Professor Bart Rypma, who led the study, said:

“People with depression or even healthy people with a depressed mood can be affected by depressive thoughts.

We have known that negative thoughts tend to last longer for those with depression.

However, this study is unique in showing that, these thoughts, triggered from stimuli in the environment, can persist to the point that they hinder a depressed person’s ability to keep their train of thought.”

In the study, 75 people read sentences that sometimes had depressive features.

The results showed that people who were depressed did 30 percent worse in a memory test when reminded of a depressing thought first.

Dr Nick Hubbard, the study’s first author, said:

“We all have a fixed amount of information we can hold in memory at one time.

The fact that depressive thoughts do not seem to go away once they enter memory certainly explains why depressed individuals have difficulty concentrating or remembering things in their daily lives.

This preoccupation of memory by depressive thoughts might also explain why more positive thoughts are often absent in depression; there simply is not enough space for them.”

Professor Rypma said:

“Interventions such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy are quite successful in empowering depressed people to recognize and better regulate the content of their thoughts.

Our goal is to continue to study how such therapeutic approaches can alter the depressed brain and how these alterations might result in better memory and outcomes for persons with depression.”

The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders (Hubbard et al., 2016).

From targeting the brain’s gamma waves to using magnetic pulses to realign the flow of abnormal brain signals, depression research continues to intrigue.

Depression treatments have come a long way since Sigmund Freud pioneered the analysis of dreams.

Neuroscientists now target the brain’s gamma waves or use magnetic pulses to realign the flow of abnormal brain signals.

Other treatments are more familiar, focusing on tweaks of tried-and-tested formulas, such as cognitive-behavioural therapy.

But one thing is for sure, the scientific research on depression continues apace.

So, below are 7 psychology studies from the members-only section of PsyBlog that give a flavour of the latest scientific research on depression.

(If you are not already, find out how to become a PsyBlog member here.)

1. How To Escape From Negative Thought Spirals
2. This Positive Therapy For Depression May Beat CBT
3. Blend Of 14 Probiotics Alleviates Persistent Depression
4. An Unusual Sensory Sign Of Depression
5. This Contraceptive Pill Doubles Depression Risk
6. How Magnetic Pulses Alleviate Severe Depression In 5 Days
7. Depression Reversed By Restoring Brain’s Natural Gamma Rhythms

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The common meds that may cause depression, despite having nothing to do with it.

One-in-three US adults is taking prescription medications that can cause depression and increase suicide risk, research finds.

The medications have nothing to do with depression, and so patients and providers are frequently unaware of the risk.

The research also found that people who used multiple medications were at even greater chance of depression.

Over 200 common prescription drugs have depression and suicide listed as potential side-effects, including:

• hormonal birth control medications,
• blood pressure and heart medications,
• proton pump inhibitors,
• antacids,
• and painkillers.

Around 15 percent of people who used three drugs simultaneously also experienced depression compared with just 5 percent of people taking none of these drugs.

The results were similar for drugs that listed suicidal feelings as a side-effect — using multiple drugs increased the risk.

Dr Dima Qato, the study’s first author, said:

“The take away message of this study is that polypharmacy [taking multiple drugs simultaneously] can lead to depressive symptoms and that patients and health care providers need to be aware of the risk of depression that comes with all kinds of common prescription drugs — many of which are also available over the counter.

Many may be surprised to learn that their medications, despite having nothing to do with mood or anxiety or any other condition normally associated with depression, can increase their risk of experiencing depressive symptoms, and may lead to a depression diagnosis.”

The study included data from 26,192 people between 2005 and 2014.

Unfortunately, the prescription and use of these drugs is on the rise, Dr Qato said:

“People are not only increasingly using these medicines alone, but are increasingly using them simultaneously, yet very few of these drugs have warning labels, so until we have public or system-level solutions, it is left up to patients and health care professionals to be aware of the risks.”

Dr Qato thinks health care professionals need to be more aware of the psychological risks involved in patients taking multiple medications:

“With depression as one of the leading causes of disability and increasing national suicide rates, we need to think innovatively about depression as a public health issue, and this study provides evidence that patterns of medication use should be considered in strategies that seek to eliminate, reduce or minimize the impact of depression in our daily lives.”

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Qato et al., 2018).