Brain Study Could Lead To Understanding Of Depression

Posted by Christina Crease

at September 3, 2008

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Brain scientists are coming close to recognize why some are experiencing more depression than others. Dr Roland Zahn, a clinical neuroscientist in the University of Manchester’s School of Psychological Sciences and his colleagues have recognized how the brain relates knowledge of social behavior with ethical emotions like pride and culpability.

The study held at the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the US with Dr Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section, and Dr Jorge Moll, now at the LABS-D’Or Center for Neuroscience in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, operated Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) to scan the brains of 29 healthy people while they considered some social behaviors.

Dr Zahn said, ‘Everyday we are unstoppably analyzing social behavior and this hugely affect how we think about ourselves and other people. But the way we pack and use information about our own and other people’s social behavior are not understood thoroughly.’

“This recent study used functional brain imaging to recognize the circuits in the brain that strengthen our capability to distinguish social behavior that conforms to our values from behavior that does not.” The team analyzed that social behavior is not conforming to a person’s values suggested emotions of anger when carried out by another person or guilt feeling when the behavior stemmed from the persons themselves.

The FMRI scans of every person could be observed to watch which brain part is working for the different kinds of feeling being expressed. Dr Zahn said that the unique characteristic of depressive disorders is an overstated negative behavior to oneself, which is truly accompanied by guilt feelings. He further said that we understand how the brains of healthy people react to feelings of guilt. We pray to be able to know why and where are differences in the brain activity, people who are experiencing depression state.

“The brain region we have recognized which is linked with guilt and it has been found that is it is unusually active in patients with serious depression in many studies but till now its involvement in guilt had not been understood.”

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