Depression and Brain Training
A recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may give us a clue on why depression and mental abilities are linked. In the past, my colleagues and I looked at how depression can actually increase the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. The article in PNAS, authored by Aaron Heller, though, suggests that brain functioning itself may be affected by depression.
The study reported looked at how well depressed people could activate a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens is a small area of the brain that lies deep inside it. It is mostly known as a center for the metabolic activity of reinforcement. Drugs that can be abused, such as cocaine, increase activation in that part of the brain. Activation in the nucleus accumbens is often thought to reflect positive feelings or pleasure.
The paper in PNAS showed that depressed patients weren’t able to keep the nucleus accumbens activated in response to something positive. It’s a little like when you talk to a friend who’s feeling sad. You may be able to cheer them up for a little while, but they may go back to feeling depressed pretty quickly.
The authors note that the results are suggestive, but not definitive, on the ways that depression can affect things such as motivation and psychomotor speed (the ability to think and do things quickly, like driving a car).. Reduced psychomotor speed is especially relevant because some influential researchers on how mental abilities change with age, such as Timothy Salthouse, have suggested that psychomotor speed may be a key to cognitive decline as we get older. The paper by Heller and his colleagues, suggested that difficulties in sustaining activation of the nucleus accumbens can reduce psychomotor speed.
The authors of the paper also note that interventions that can help people who are depressed maintain activation of the nucleus accumbens may be useful in treating depression. And that’s an interesting observation, because that’s precisely what a number of cognitive behavioral interventions for depression actually do. It raises the possibility, though, that some form of cognitive training might improve someone’s mood. That possibility is supported by findings from an NIA study of cognitive training (the ACTIVE trial). Researchers showed that participants in cognitive training were less likely to become depressed (click here for the study).
So it looks as though cognitive training may help with mood. If you’re depressed, you shouldn’t rely on cognitive training to help you get better. Talk to a psychologist or someone who can help you with how you’re feeling. Psychotherapy and medication are very helpful to many people. After you take care of all the regular ways of dealing with depression, though, it may be helpful for depression. Remember, depression is a serious condition and should be treated. But is looks as though brain training may be another strategy for routine depression.
Reference: Heller A et al. (2009). Reduced capacity to sustain positive emotion in major depression reflects diminished maintenance of fronto-striatal brain activation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(52), 22445-22450. Click here for the PNAS site.
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I saw an interesting blog post yesterday evening on the site of the Huffington Post about the potential benefits of meditation – or at least about what one woman thinks might be the benefits. Priscilla Warner writes about the contrast between Tibetan monks’ apparent calm, evident even on brain scans, and her own anxiety disorder. Ms. Warner says that she suffers from panic disorder, a severe form of anxiety in which a person can have multiple anxiety attacks every day, even in the middle of the night. Her post is titled “I Want the Brain of a Monk” Although most people don’t suffer from anxiety this severe, many people have symptoms of anxiety. And research has consistently shown that higher levels of anxiety are related to more memory problems.
What’s the relation to brain fitness? In my brain fitness class, I often mention the usefulness of meditation in helping reduce stress and anxiety, both of which have negative effects on memory. You don’t have to go to Tibet to get the benefits of meditation. If you simply take 10 minutes several times a day to break in to the ongoing rush of getting things done, you’ve made a start. Use those 10 minutes to sit quietly, relax your muscles, and breathe deeply.
If you do that every day for two weeks, I think you’ll notice that you feel calmer and better able to focus. And if you’re better able to focus, you will be better able to pay attention and remember things.
Although many people are excited about the potential for using computers to train their brains, we shouldn’t forget that other techniques have been used to the train the brain for many centuries. I’m thinking about the large number of techniques for meditation. While free computer software still requires an investment in a computer, meditation only asks you to sit or lie quietly and focus your mind.
A recently-published study shows parts of the brain in long-term meditators are larger than the same parts of the brain in people who don’t meditate. The article by Eileen Luders and her colleagues appeared in a recent issue of the journal Neuroimage (Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 672-678, April 15, 2009). The study showed that portions of the orbitofrontal cortex and the hippocampus were larger in persons who had been regular meditators for 5 or more years. The study is interesting because the parts of the brain that were larger are often thought to be important in helping people keep themselves emotionally balanced.
A number of strategies are likely to be helpful for meditators. There has been a great deal of interest over the last several years in mindfulness meditation. Researchers have studied how it can be used in reducing anxiety and depression. Mindfulness is based on Buddhist meditation (for a brief article, click here) but you don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice meditation. In fact, one of the most important persons who has promoted mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts. You can see a video presentation by him on YouTube by clicking here.
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