Depression: The Chemical And Emotional Drift Of The Brain

Depression is a continuous drift in which the days drag on slowly, in which there are no tears left despite wanting to cry, in which one believes he is going to die alive because he no longer smiles for that hopeless brain …

This feeling, so familiar to so many people, is a tremendously complex and peculiar mood disorder. Depression is a major cause of disability and impotence nowadays. This is a major health problem and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), will increase significantly in the coming years.

Something is happening. While governments around the world focus on economics (treatments related to mental health problems can cost up to 4% of a country’s GDP), doctors and psychiatrists focus on the importance of prevention. We know how to treat depression, but nowadays no one is able to prevent those moments in life when one simply lets oneself drift chemically and emotionally created by the brain.

We invite you to deepen this aspect of our health and well-being.

Depression: a silent stigma

Depression doesn’t show up overnight. No one chooses it as a first course in his daily life, no one spontaneously wants a disconnect from the noise of life, from positive emotions, from happiness. It comes in a gradual, slow and heavy way until we sink into vulnerability and the inability to react.

Michael King, a psychiatrist and professor in the Department of Mental Health Sciences at University College London (UCL), is one of the leaders of the famous PredictD test, which aims to predict the risk of depression. According to Professor King, this disease continues to be highly stigmatized at present.

As several studies reveal, it is estimated that nearly 50% of depressive disorders do not receive any treatment or are not treated adequately according to the needs of the individual patient. All this pushes thousands of people adrift and thousands more choose suicide as a solution to the pain of life. This or they just deal with relapse after relapse life.

According to some currents of spiritualist thought, we are all capable of “vibrating”. We could say that we emit a certain inner music which, in turn, allows us to tune in with our fellow men, with certain places, contexts and with certain activities that correspond to our personality. This internal “melody” is the reflection of an active, passionate, curious brain. ..

When depression occurs, this ability to vibrate is extinguished and it does so because the electrical impulse of certain brain areas is reduced, slows down. We enter a state of “semi-lethargy” where there are fewer neural connections, where there is a deep and delicate chemical drift from which we struggle to get out and connect with life again.

Let’s see it in detail below.

The effects of depression on brain architecture

It is important to note that depression does not depend only on an alteration in the level of neurotransmitters. Genetic vulnerability, emotional factors or even health problems can undoubtedly predispose them to appear. However, the effect of this mood disorder on the brain is significant. Let’s see it together:

• The hippocampus: is part of the limbic system and is responsible for processing memory and long-term recollection. According to several studies, long periods of depression or chronic stress reduce the size of this structure. As a result, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, etc. may arise.

• Depression, in turn, orchestrates a subtle and complex chemical chaos in which aceticolin, serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine affect emotional balance. This prevents those suffering from this disorder from easily falling asleep, from feeling motivated for something, to the point of having the feeling of having been closed out of the world.

• Another structure to consider is the thalamus. It is a structure of the nervous system that receives sensory information and transmits it in turn to the corresponding part of the cerebral cortex. Thanks to the thalamus, we control functions such as speech or movement. Patients with depression exhibit a certain sluggishness when it comes to moving or communicating with the agility and spirit of before. It is a feature that is immediately noticeable.

Depression is, therefore, a complex enemy that settles in the brain and where it hurts the most: in the heart. Thoughts become chaotic, disordered and bitter, to the point of falling into a psychic and emotional drift that can last for years.

Do not allow all this, do not let yourself go, allow others to help you and, above all, struggle to get back to shore, to put on the shoes of hope and the glasses of optimism again.