Depression Makes Your Brain Shrink, Study

Anyone who is suffering from chronic depression may also get his hippocampus shrunk. That area of the brain that is responsible for forming memories thus feels small and lost, says a new global study of nearly 9,000 according to rt.

Hence, those who undergo recurrent depression have much tinier hippocampuses than healthy persons, researchers said.

In a study that has been called the "largest international research to compare brain volumes in people with and without major depression," it points out the necessity to locate and treat depression when it begins to strike, especially among teenagers and young adults.

The study used magnetic resonance imaged (MRI) brain scans, and compiled clinical data from 1,728 people who suffered from major depression, comparing them with 7,199 healthy individuals. The research also collected 15 datasets from Europe, the US and Australia.

Major depression is pretty common, and affects at least one in six during their lives, according to the researchers. The clinical mood disorder leads to overwhelming feelings of sadness, frustration, loss, or anger that meddles with a person's life for weeks, months or years.

The major problems were identified in subjects who had recurrent depression. However, patients of recurrent depression represented just 65 per cent of study subjects who suffered from major depression.

Those who had major depression before 21 tended to exhibit smaller hippocampuses than healthy individuals. Hence, many of these youths went on to suffer from recurrent disorders.

However, the hippocampus did not shrink for the 34 per cent of those who had their first episode of major depression, which indicated that the changes were mainly due to the fallout of depressive illness on the brain.

"These findings shed new light on brain structures and possible mechanisms responsible for depression," said Associate Professor Jim Lagopoulos of the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Research Institute.

"This large study confirms the need to treat first episodes of depression effectively, particularly in teenagers and young adults, to prevent the brain changes that accompany recurrent depression," said Co-Director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute, Professor Ian Hickie.

"This new finding of smaller hippocampal volume in people with major depression may offer some support to the neurotrophic hypothesis of depression," Lagopoulos added.

The study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.