Sadness and Brain Communication Changes

According to a recent research in Nature, sadness may change how the brain communicates even in the absence of symptoms. Changes in a crucial brain network linked to motivation and attention were discovered by researchers using fMRI technology. Future depression risk in people may be predicted by this remapping.

The Salience Network: A Role for the Salience Network in Depression

• An architectural expansion of the salience network involved in stimulus processing and emotion regulation in depressed states.
• A study of brain connectivity in 141 people, some with depression and some without
• The frontostriatal salience network was greater in size among depressives, affecting both depression and anxiety symptoms.
• The enlarged salience network can tell us who is going to become depressed
• More specifically, salience network strength associated with loss of pleasure/motivation depression symptoms.
• The salience network increases in extent to areas not associated with depression, areas involved in effort-related-choice decision making
• Exercise could be effective for depression because of its effects on the effort-related network.
• Given the expansion of the salience network, it might be a candidate biomarker for depression.
• Jonathan Roiser explains why depression is best viewed not as a simple chemical imbalance, but rather as the product of interactions between multiple circuits in the brain.