The Secret To Reducing Depression Risk 50% In Veterans (S)
It reduced depression and PTSD risk by 50%.
Category: Depression
This Common Condition Causes Depression (S)
Two-thirds of Americans have this condition.
3 Types Of Depression Identified
One type does not respond to SSRI antidepressants.
One type does not respond to SSRI antidepressants.
Three sub-types of depression have been identified for the first time, new research reveals.
One type does not respond to SSRI antidepressants, the most common treatment for depression.
The type that does not respond to antidepressants exists in people with experience of childhood trauma, along with certain patterns of brain activity.
SSRIs are thought to work by boosting levels of serotonin in the brain, but they do not work on some people.
Professor Kenji Doya, study co-author, said:
“It has always been speculated that different types of depression exist, and they influence the effectiveness of the drug.
But there has been no consensus.”
For the study, 134 people had blood tests, completed a series of questionnaires and had brain scans.
The results revealed three different sub-types, Professor Doya said:
“This is the first study to identify depression sub-types from life history and MRI data.”
Two of the sub-types were linked to successfully responding to antidepressants.
People with these two type of depression had not suffered childhood trauma and did not have unusually high levels of connectivity between different areas of the brain.
The third type, that does not respond to antidepressants, is linked to unusual activity in the angular gyrus, a brain structure critical for processing language, attention and other areas of cognition.
It is hoped that understanding depression sub-types will aid its treatment.
Dr. Tomoki Tokuda, the study’s lead author, said:
“The major challenge in this study was to develop a statistical tool that could extract relevant information for clustering similar subjects together.”
The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Tokuda et al., 2018).
The Best Way To Treat Depression
It helps change negative thought patterns and enables people with depression to see the world more realistically.
It helps change negative thought patterns and enables people with depression to see the world more realistically.
Changing how you think is the best way to overcome depression, research finds.
Cognitive techniques can help to change negative thought patterns and enable people with depression to see the world more realistically.
Dr Daniel Strunk, the study’s first author, said:
“…our results suggest that it was the cognitive strategies that actually helped patients improve the most during the first critical weeks of cognitive-behavioral therapy.”
The study involved 60 patients diagnosed with major depression who were treated by cognitive therapists.
The results showed that an initial focus on cognitive techniques was linked to greater improvements in depression than using behavioural techniques.
Typical cognitive techniques include questioning negative thoughts and running thought experiments.
Behavioural techniques include things like making a plan of action to do things that you enjoy.
The study also found that people who collaborated better with their therapist and committed to therapy did better.
Dr Strunk said:
“If you’re a patient and willing to fully commit to the therapy process, our data suggest you will see more benefit.”
The study is part of a project to understand how cognitive therapy works, Dr Strunk said:
“We’re trying to understand if cognitive therapy leads people to a profound change in their basic self view, or if it teaches them a set of skills that they have to continually practice over time.”
Cognitive-behavioural therapy targets both thoughts and behaviours, but it may be the cognitive aspect that is most useful at first.
Dr Strunk said:
“In our sample of cognitive therapy patients, cognitive techniques appeared to promote a lessening of depression symptoms in a way that was not true of behavioral techniques.”
The study was published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy (Strunk et al., 2010).
2 Personality Traits Linked To Negative Thoughts
The best strategy for getting rid of negative thoughts.
The best strategy for getting rid of negative thoughts.
People high in neuroticism are more likely to experience negative thoughts, research finds.
In addition, being introverted is linked to spontaneously remembering more negative life events.
Together, both personality traits — neuroticism and introversion — are linked to depression and anxiety.
On the other hand, people with stable emotions who are more extraverted are at lower risk of depression and anxiety.
Neuroticism and introversion are two of the ‘big 5’ personality traits, that also include agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience.
The study included 71 people who were given personality tests and asked to recall some personal memories.
Dr Florin Dolcos, study co-author, explained:
“We’re looking at traits that are associated with the way that people process the emotional world and the way that they respond to it.
We wanted to look not only at how personality traits might influence what and how people remember, but also to examine how that impacts their (subsequent) emotional state.”
The results showed that both men and women who were more introverted tended to recall more negative memories.
Neurotic women had a tendency to repeatedly return to the same memories, the study revealed.
Psychologists call this rumination.
Dr Dolcos explained:
“Depressed people recollect those negative memories and as a result they feel sad.
And as a result of feeling sad, the tendency is to have more negative memories recollected.
It’s a kind of a vicious circle.”
Neurotic men, though, recalled a higher proportion of negative memories.
Getting rid of negative thoughts
To get rid of negative thoughts, people use a variety of strategies.
For women, trying to suppress negative thoughts did not work, as they returned stronger than before.
(See: the problem with thought suppression.)
Men who made an effort to think differently about their memories — what psychologists call ‘reappraisal’ — recalled more positive memories.
Suppression was not linked to any differences for men.
One of the best ways of getting rid of negative thoughts is using flexible emotional control strategies.
The study was published in the journal Emotion (Denkova et al., 2012).
The Best Treatment For Severe Depression (S)
In each year, almost 7% of Americans have an episode of major depressive disorder.
Depression Is Contagious Between These Family Members (S)
One-quarter of parents reported moderate to severe depression.
The Neural Link Between Depression And Sleep Identified (S)
Why 75% of depressed people also report sleep problems like insomnia or difficulties falling asleep.
The Drugs That May Treat Depression By Restructuring The Brain (S)
The findings could help with new treatments for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addictions.
The Best Way To Protect Against Depression (S)
The future risk of developing depression was around 20% lower in people who did this.
