Depression makes the brain more sensitive to sadness Can a bad mood “modify” the brain? That’s a bit alarming. But if the subject is depression, Yao Zhijian says, this phenomenon can really happen. People with depression and healthy people are shown a variety of expressions, including happiness and sadness. Functional MRI technology is then used to capture the activity of the person’s brain. Specifically, when we have an area of the brain that is activated and starts working, the blood flow to that area tends to increase, and functional MRI captures just such changes. Do you know what the results are? The researchers found that, in contrast to the brain activity responses of healthy people, the brains of depressed people are indifferent to those happy, positive expressions, but are particularly sensitive to negative expressions like sadness and pain, with widespread and intense activation within the brain. “In this case, the depressed person’s diminished ability to feel joyful things and the greater perceptiveness, greater shock, and longer-lasting effects of unpleasant things can be explained.” From this perspective, we can find that depression is not at all what people think “can’t think”. Take a look at this “brain transformation diagram”: Of course, modern imaging examination found much more than this. Yao Zhijian drew a simple diagram for the reporter (see top right of this page). Patients with depression often have extensive damage to the structure or function of brain regions. You see these areas marked out on the diagram, and in depressed patients, changes in these areas in turn affect the person, which naturally includes adverse effects on their emotional state. For example, damage to areas such as the amygdala and hippocampus, which are involved in the regulation of people’s emotions, can make depressed people overly concerned about sadness and always depressed; then damage to areas such as the orbitofrontal area can make the person’s judgment ability diminish, and in severe cases, the person may not even be able to decide what to wear, or the person may not feel happy at all even if they are engaged in their own hobbies; the prefrontal lobe is a higher cognitive brain area, and damage to this Damage to this area can cause cognitive decline in some depressed patients, who may feel that their “brain is not moving”, and that they are unresponsive and blocked in their thinking. In addition, studies have found that damage in some areas can also affect the prognosis of patients and even the risk of future relapses; some damage is even related to the performance of patients of different genders, for example, women are more sensitive to sadness, which is also supported by imaging evidence. All these damages suggest the truth that the brain of depressed patients may be unconsciously altered in ways that also deprive them of the ability to be happy. Depression is also associated with genes In fact, research is now finding that there are some genes associated with depression. ”Take 5-hydroxytryptamine, for example. This neurotransmitter affects our mood, sleep and appetite, and if levels are too low, people are prone to depression, anxiety and sleep disorders. Most studies now confirm its association with the onset of depression. And studies have found that the receptor genes associated with 5-hydroxytryptamine differ somewhat in people with depression and healthy people, for example.” In addition, there are genes that have been found to be associated with negative emotion processing functions in depressed patients. A number of hypotheses have now been proposed in research on depression, such as the 5-hydroxytryptamine hypothesis and the norepinephrine hypothesis. Through these studies, the medical community now agrees that depression is a psychological disorder with significant structural and functional brain alterations that requires formal, long-term treatment, so depression needs to be formally understood by people and patients need to be understood by people. However, people do not need to talk about depression because depression can still be well treated as long as it gets regular treatment. In particular, doctors are now using imaging technology in the diagnosis and treatment of depression. In the past, the diagnosis of depression and the assessment of treatment effects were mainly based on subjective factors, or on symptoms and clinical evaluation indicators. In the past, the diagnosis of depression and the assessment of treatment effectiveness were mainly based on subjective factors, or on symptoms and clinical indicators, while imaging tests can provide early warning and diagnostic assistance when clinical manifestations are not obvious, and can also more accurately assess treatment effectiveness, so that patients can receive more effective treatment.