Depression - Page 39 of 44

The Secret of Forgiveness: Only One Type Reduces Depression

People in general become more forgiving as they get older — but one type of forgiveness reduces depression.

People in general become more forgiving as they get older — but one type of forgiveness reduces depression.

Women who forgive others are less likely to feel depressed, a new study finds.

This was unaffected by whether they felt others had forgiven them.

For men, though, forgiving others and feeling unforgiven was linked to higher levels of depression.

Self-forgiveness, meanwhile, had little impact on depression for either men or women.

Dr Christine Proulx, one of the study’s authors, said:

“It doesn’t feel good when we perceive that others haven’t forgiven us for something.
When we think about forgiveness and characteristics of people who are forgiving — altruistic, compassionate, empathetic — these people forgive others and seem to compensate for the fact that others aren’t forgiving them.
It sounds like moral superiority, but it’s not about being a better person.
It’s ‘I know that this hurts because it’s hurting me,’ and those people are more likely to forgive others, which appears to help decrease levels of depression, particularly for women.”

As people age, they have a tendency to look back on their lives and reflect.

This includes thinking about people who have wronged them and others they have wronged.

How people frame their personal history can change how they feel about their lives.

The research recruited over 1,000 people who were 67 years or older.

They answered questions about their psychological well-being, health and religion.

Ms Ashley Ermer, the study’s first author, said:

“As people get older, they become more forgiving.
Our population also predominately was Christian, which may influence individuals’ willingness to forgive and could function differently among individuals with different beliefs.”

The researchers were surprised to discover that self-forgiveness had little effect on depression.

The real key is to forgive others.

Indeed forgiving others really can lead to forgetting, according to another recent study.

Dr Proulx said:

“Self-forgiveness didn’t act as the protector against depression.
It’s really about whether individuals can forgive other people and their willingness to forgive others.”

The research was published in the journal Aging and Mental Health (Ermer & Proulx, 2015).

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Sadness Can Have This Strange Effect on Your Vision

Depression can have this strange effect on vision.

Feeling sad can change your vision.

Feeling sad can change the perception of colour.

People who were feeling sad found it more difficult to identify colours between blue and yellow on the spectrum, researchers found.

Dr Christopher Thorstenson, the study’s first author, said:

“Our results show that mood and emotion can affect how we see the world around us.
Our work advances the study of perception by showing that sadness specifically impairs basic visual processes that are involved in perceiving color.”

The study adds to the evidence that depression changes the way people perceive the world in all sorts of ways.

For example, people in a depressed mood are worse at detecting visual contrast.

The scientists were inspired by common phrases like ‘feeling blue’, which suggest a connection between colour and mood.

Dr Thorstenson said:

“We were already deeply familiar with how often people use color terms to describe common phenomena, like mood, even when these concepts seem unrelated.
We thought that maybe a reason these metaphors emerge was because there really was a connection between mood and perceiving colors in a different way.”

For the research people were put into different moods then asked to judge the colours.

Dr Thorstenson explained the results:

“We were surprised by how specific the effect was, that color was only impaired along the blue-yellow axis.
We did not predict this specific finding, although it might give us a clue to the reason for the effect in neurotransmitter functioning.”

The research was published in the journal Psychological Science (Thorstenson et al., 2015).

NOTE: At the request of the authors, this article was retracted by the Editor and publishers of Psychological Science.

Four Common Foods That May Lower Risk of Depression

…and three foods linked to increased risk of depression.

…and three foods linked to increased risk of depression.

A diet high in refined carbohydrates increases the risk of depression in some people, a new study finds.

Refined carbohydrates include foods like white bread, white rice and soda.

These foods have a high glycemic index, which causes a hormonal reaction in the body.

The hormone may, in turn, increase fatigue, mood changes and symptoms of depression.

The study looked at 70,000 post-menopausal women who were followed over a period of four years.

The researchers found that consumption of more refined grains and sugars was linked to depression.

Women who ate more vegetables, whole grains, dietary fibre and non-juice fruit, however, had a lower risk of depression.

The study’s authors write:

“The consumption of sweetened beverages, refined foods, and pastries has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of depression in longitudinal studies.
The results from this study suggest that high-GI diets could be a risk factor for depression in postmenopausal women.”

The research was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Gangwisch et al., 2015).

Image credit: Brandon Warren

The Memories That Could Cure Stress-Induced Depression

Some memories may have a curative power over stress-induced depression.

Some memories may have a curative power over stress-induced depression.

Positive memories could help fight stress-induced depression, a new study finds.

The study may answer whether negative memories can really be overwritten with positive ones.

For the research, scientists artificially reactivated positive memories in mice.

They found that these could suppress the effects of negative memories previously implanted.

For the study, male mice were given a positive experience: exposure to a female mouse.

The scientists were able to ‘tag’ this experience in the brain, so it could be reactivated later.

Then, the mice were given a stressful experience which put them into a depression-like state.

Afterwards light was used to stimulate a part of the brain to reactivate the positive memory of the female mouse.

The male mice quickly recovered from their depressed state.

Not only this but the positive memory continued to protect the mice from depression over the longer term.

The study was published in the journal Nature (Ramirez et al., 2015).

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How Depression Is Linked to Intestinal Bacteria

Link between the gut and low mood found in study of mice.

Link between the gut and low mood found in study of mice.

Bacteria in the intestine can play an important role in causing anxiety and depression, new research concludes.

It helps explain recent research suggesting probiotics can stop sad moods getting worse.

Probiotics may work to help stabilise the bacteria in the gut.

Another recent study also found probiotics may reduce anxiety.

The new conclusions come from a study of mice which were exposed to stress early in life.

Dr Premysl Bercik, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We have shown for the first time in an established mouse model of anxiety and depression that bacteria play a crucial role in inducing this abnormal behaviour.
But it’s not only bacteria, it’s the altered bi-directional communication between the stressed host — mice subjected to early life stress — and its microbiota, that leads to anxiety and depression.”

In other words, anxiety and depression result from stress early in life plus microbial factors.

Early life stress on its own was not enough to cause the mice to behave anxiously, the study found.

Similarly, the bacteria in the gut on their own do not seem to cause depression and anxiety.

Dr Bercik explained how they reached this conclusion:

“….if we transfer the bacteria from stressed mice into non stressed germ-free mice, no abnormalities are observed.
This suggests that in this model, both host and microbial factors are required for the development of anxiety and depression-like behavior.
Neonatal stress leads to increased stress reactivity and gut dysfunction that changes the gut microbiota which, in turn, alters brain function.”

Naturally, as the study was carried out on mice, it will have to confirmed in humans.

Dr Bercik said:

“We are starting to explain the complex mechanisms of interaction and dynamics between the gut microbiota and its host.
Our data show that relatively minor changes in microbiota profiles or its metabolic activity induced by neonatal stress can have profound effects on host behaviour in adulthood.
It would be important to determine whether this also applies to humans.
For instance, whether we can detect abnormal microbiota profiles or different microbial metabolic activity in patients with primary psychiatric disorders, like anxiety and depression,”

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (De Palma et al., 2015).

• Read on: Consuming a prebiotic bacteria can have an anti-anxiety effect

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The New Compounds That Could Treat Depression in 24-Hours

Current antidepressants take around 3 to 8 weeks to kick in and only help around 50% of people who are depressed.

Current antidepressants take around 3 to 8 weeks to kick in and only help around 50% of people who are depressed.

A new type of antidepressant holds the promise of treating depression quickly, without too many side-effects.

Professor Scott Thompson, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine who led the research, said:

“Our results open up a whole new class of potential antidepressant medications.
We have evidence that these compounds can relieve the devastating symptoms of depression in less than one day, and can do so in a way that limits some of the key disadvantages of current approaches.”

Currently used antidepressants, such as Prozac and Lexapro, target levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Unfortunately they are only effective in around half of people with depression.

Even amongst people they do help, it can take three to eight weeks for the effects can be felt.

For patients who are suicidal, this period can be excruciating.

Also, many now believe that targeting serotonin is not effective (see: Long-Held Belief About Depression Challenged by New Study).

The new compounds focus on another neurotransmitter with the acronym GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), instead of serotonin.

GABA mainly reduces brain activity in certain key areas related to mood.

The new class of compounds dampen down these inhibitory signals.

Theoretically, the result should be to lift mood.

Professor Thompson explained that preliminary tests on animals have been encouraging:

“These compounds produced the most dramatic effects in animal studies that we could have hoped for.
It will now be tremendously exciting to find out whether they produce similar effects in depressed patients.
If these compounds can quickly provide relief of the symptoms of human depression, such as suicidal thinking, it could revolutionize the way patients are treated.”

The study found that the compounds only affected the brains of stressed rats and left unstressed rats unchanged.

This may mean that the side-effects of the treatment will be less severe than those seen for current antidepressants.

The study was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology (Fischell et al., 2015).

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Depression Caused By How People See The Future, New Study Finds

New approach to cause of depression may help treatment using established therapies.

New approach to cause of depression may help treatment using established therapies.

It’s often assumed that it’s depression that causes a pessimistic view of the future.

But it could be the other way around, a new study finds.

Being pessimistic about the future may actually cause depression.

Professor Martin Seligman and Ann Marie Roepke reviewed the research on prospection.

Prospection refers to how we think about the future.

Their conclusions are published in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology (Roepke & Seligman, 2015).

They find that there are three ways in which thinking about the future may cause depression:

Poor generation of possible futures.
Poor evaluation of possible future.
Negative beliefs about the future.

Depression also likely feeds back into more negative views of the future, creating a vicious circle.

Fortunately, these types of thinking can be addressed by talk therapies such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).

The study’s authors write:

“Prospection belongs front and centre in the study of depression.
Laboratory studies are needed to confirm that faulty prospection does drive depression and to help us determine how prospection can be improved.
We hope clinical scientists will invest in research on prospection to shed more light on a crucial and underappreciated process that may underlie much more than depression.
An understanding of how prospection shapes psychopathology may enable researchers to create more effective treatments and help distressed individuals to create brighter futures.”

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Unexpected New Aspect of Depression Identified

This aspect of depression was a surprise to researchers — the exact reverse of what they expected.

This aspect of depression was a surprise to researchers — the exact reverse of what they expected.

Depressed people have difficulty understanding emotions in speech, a new study finds.

Researchers tested whether people could pick out the emotional content in speech.

At the same time they were being distracted by different types of background noise.

Dr Zilong Xie, one of the researchers involved, explained the results:

“We found that people with elevated depression symptoms are generally poorer at hearing all types of emotional speech relative to people with low depression symptoms.”

The findings were a surprise to researchers, who expected depressed people to pick up the negative emotions more easily.

Usually people who are depressed are more oriented towards the negative, as Dr Xie explained:

“A lot of research has suggested that these people with elevated depression symptoms have a bias towards negative perception of information in this kind of environment.”

The study was presented at the 169th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), held May 18–22, 2015 in Pittsburgh.

• Continue reading: Depression: 10 Fascinating Insights into a Misunderstood Condition

Image credit: Brandon Warren

Creativity Boost From Method That May Also Treat Depression

New method found to increase creativity and could be used to treat depression.

New method found to increase creativity and could be used to treat depression.

A small amount of electricity applied to the brain can increase creativity, a new study finds.

Electricity applied at the correct frequency to the scalp can enhance the brain’s natural alpha rhythms.

Dr Flavio Frohlich, PhD, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We’ve provided the first evidence that specifically enhancing alpha oscillations is a causal trigger of a specific and complex behavior — in this case, creativity.
But our goal is to use this approach to help people with neurological and psychiatric illnesses.
For instance, there is strong evidence that people with depression have impaired alpha oscillations.
If we could enhance these brain activity patterns, then we could potentially help many people.”

The researchers are now running studies to test the effect on depression.

Dr Frohlich continued:

“The fact that we’ve managed to enhance creativity in a frequency-specific way — in a carefully-done double-blinded placebo-controlled study — doesn’t mean that we can definitely treat people with depression.
But if people with depression are stuck in a thought pattern and fail to appropriately engage with reality, then we think it’s possible that enhancing alpha oscillations could be a meaningful, noninvasive, and inexpensive treatment paradigm for them — similar to how it enhanced creativity in healthy participants.”

The research comes as a result of a revolution in how scientists think about alpha waves.

Originally discovered by Hans Berger in 1929, alpha waves are most prominent when we shut off sensory stimuli by, for example, closing our eyes.

Dr Frohlich said:

“For a long time, people thought alpha waves represented the brain idling.
But over the past 20 years we’ve developed much better insight.
Our brains are not wasting energy, creating these patterns for nothing.
When the brain is decoupled from the environment, it still does important things.”

Treat depression

For the study, researchers placed two electrodes over the frontal cortex and one at the back.

They found that people were much more creative when the current was applied at the correct frequency of 10 Hertz.

In comparison 40 Hertz oscillations did nothing for people.

Dr Frohlich said:

“Using 40 Hertz, we saw no effect on creativity.
The effect we saw was specific to the 10-hertz alpha oscillations.
There’s no statistical trickery.
You just have to look at each participant’s test to see these effects.”

Frohlich said, though, that their focus was on finding a treatment for depression:

“There are people that are cognitively impaired and need help, and sometimes there are no medications that help or the drugs have serious side effects.
Helping these populations of people is why we do this kind of research.”

The study was published in the journal Cortex (Lustenberger et al., 2015).

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Probiotics May Stop Sadness Becoming Depression

How four weeks of probiotic supplementation can help stop a sad mood getting worse.

How four weeks of probiotic supplementation can help stop a sad mood getting worse.

Probiotics may stop sadness turning into depression by helping people let go of the past, a new study finds.

Researchers at the Leiden Institute of Brain and Cognition found that probiotics stopped people ruminating so much.

Rumination is when people focus on bad experiences and feelings from the past.

Dr Laura Steenbergen, the study’s first author, said:

“Rumination is one of the most predictive vulnerability markers of depression.
Persistent ruminative thoughts often precede and predict episodes of depression.”

In the study 40 people were given a sachet to take with water or milk every day for four weeks.

Half of the people received sachets that contained a multispecies probiotic.

The other half received a placebo for the four weeks.

Before and afterwards people’s so-called ‘cognitive reactivity’ was measured.

‘Cognitive reactivity’ is the extent to which a sad mood can turn into something more serious.

The authors explained the results:

“…in the probiotics supplementation condition participants perceived themselves to be less distracted by aggressive and ruminative thoughts when in a sad mood.”

In other words, when people felt sad, those taking the probiotics ruminated less.

The authors write:

“…studies have shown that the tendency to engage in ruminative thoughts is sufficient to turn mood fluctuations into depressive episodes, and that individuals who typically respond to low mood by ruminating about possible causes and consequences of their state have more difficulties in recovering from depression.”

Probiotics have been increasingly linked to good mental health.

But this is the first study to identify this specific link.

Dr Lorenza Colzato, another of the study’s authors, said:

“Even if preliminary, these results provide the first evidence that the intake of probiotics may help reduce negative thoughts associated with sad mood.
As such, our findings shed an interesting new light on the potential of probiotics to serve as adjuvant or preventive therapy for depression.”

The research is published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (Steenbergen et al., 2015).

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