What Causes Clinical Depression In The Brain

So clinical depression major depressive disorder is caused by a number of different factors but the bottom line is that in patients with depression the brain is inadequately equipped to process negative emotions.

What causes clinical depression in the brain. There is some debate concerning the causes of depression. Recent research indicates that changes in the function and effect of these neurotransmitters and how they interact with neurocircuits involved in maintaining mood stability may play a significant role in depression and its treatment. No one knows exactly what causes it but it can occur for a variety of reasons. Rather there are many possible causes of depression including faulty mood regulation by the brain genetic vulnerability stressful life events medications and medical problems.

In people with depression the levels of certain brain chemicals are thought to be out of balance particularly these neurotransmitters. The hippocampus is located near the center of the brain. The hippocampus amygdala and prefrontal cortex. You might have heard that depression stems from a chemical imbalance and that s partly true.

This can cause a number of symptoms such as extreme tiredness and a lack of interest in sex loss of libido which can in turn lead to depression. Research suggests that depression doesn t spring from simply having too much or too little of certain brain chemicals. Signals are sent through the brain and in fact the entire nervous system by special chemicals called neurotransmitters. With most drugs that aim to treat depression they advertise that low levels of serotonin in one s brain actually cause depression.

Neurotransmitters are naturally occurring brain chemicals that likely play a role in depression. However no research in the past actually came to this conclusion. The result may be emotional flooding persistently negative views of oneself and the world hopelessness and depressed mood. Depression is an extremely complex disease.

On the one hand it is considered a physiological disorder of the brain. In rarer cases a minor head injurycan damage the pituitary gland which is a pea sized gland at the base of your brain that produces thyroid stimulating hormones. Serotonin which regulates mood emotion and sleep. It s still not clear however whether inflammation causes depression or vice versa.

But brain inflammation during depression is linked to the amount of time a person has been depressed.