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About four million Germans suffer from depressive disorder. There are more than 300 million in the world. Being depressed is considered a person who suffers from a heavy mood depression over a long period. Affected people usually can not get out of this hole and slip in weeks, months or years more deeply.
The symptoms may appear completely independent of external circumstances such as fate, personal problems or stress. Individuals feel the emptiness deep in their minds, are hopeless and helpless and usually have trouble getting out of bed. Often, depression also includes physical symptoms such as headaches or stomach upset, low libido or sleep disturbances.
In depressed people, cerebral metabolism is disrupted
Researchers have already shown that in depressed people, brain metabolism is confused. At least one of the two messengers, serotonin and norepinephrine, is not present at the optimal concentration. As a result, the nerve cells can no longer communicate properly and the impulses between the brain cells can no longer be correctly transmitted.
Nowadays, depressive disorders can be treated quite well. Anyone who undertakes to consult a specialist can in most cases even be completely cured with the right treatment methods.
Thirty percent of patients do not benefit from antidepressants
In addition to psychotherapy, medications are also often used, at least temporarily. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors are among the most prescribed antidepressants. They should help restore the balance of the messenger substance, serotonin in the brain. In the majority of cases, the treatment is also effective. But in about 30% of patients, drugs do not cause any improvement.
The reason it was so was a mystery to scientists up to now. However, Japanese researchers may have come a long way towards the solution.
"This is the first study to identify the depression subtypes on the basis of life cycle and nuclear spin data," said Kenji Doya of the Institute of Science and Technology of Canada. 39; Okinawa. He was looking for a new approach to depression research with a team of scientists.
For their study, researchers looked at life situations and brain scans
The study included 67 people with depressive disorder and 67 non-depressed people formed the control group. The researchers tested the 134 participants on MRI, completed clinical questionnaires and examined over 3,000 different signs of depression.
In nuclear spin, researchers studied functional connectivity in the subjects' brains. Even at this stage, they could distinguish two groups: a group in which the functional connectivity was rather weak, they called it the group D3; and one where she worked well. The researchers were able to divide it once again into two sub-groups: one who was a victim of child abuse and trauma, the researchers called it the D1 group and one group that did not have trauma in the first place. childhood, the group D2. called.
Drugs only worked in two of the three groups
They found that serotonin reuptake inhibitors only worked on two of the groups. It is obvious that the D3 group is one of them, but also in the affected people without disturbing the connections between the different brain regions, they had an effect: in those who do not experienced no trauma from their childhood, group D2. However, in the group with childhood trauma, the D1 group, serotonin reuptake inhibitors showed no effect.
"It has always been thought that different types of depression exist and they also influence the effectiveness of drugs," says Doya.
Further studies are needed
In order to support these conclusions and to draw other conclusions, it is necessary to conduct further studies with more participants. However, researchers are already hoping to have some of the methodology, hoping to provide health scientists with a new guideline that will help them better understand the complexities of depression and better understand their patients.
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