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Tuesday, March 24. 2009

Depression and the brain

If this new study is correct and replicated, I can only wonder why it took so long to notice such a simple thing.


I have always suspected that most mental illnesses are due to hard wiring, not chemistry. The fact that medicine can help says nothing about their causes: it makes no more sense than it would to call headaches a Tylenol deficiency disorder. Given the complexity of the brain, miswiring is a common phenomenon and gives people plenty to cope with - in addition to the ordinary travails of life.


The human brain is an ongoing experiment of nature.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Our Essays, Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 12:40 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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heaches?
#1 Santay on 2009-03-24 12:49 (Reply)
What is the difference in hardwiring and mis-wiring? Seems to me hardwiring is exogenous and may lead to a chemical imbalance. Miswiring - would that be an endogenous screw-up? .. Also leading to a chemical imbalance? Any screw-up in the brain causes some chemical imbalance, so that point is moot.

Interesting stuff. I read it twice to check, but it gives too little countenance to outside events causing depression or PTSD on the person with a nice, full, fat, squishy brain.
#2 Meta on 2009-03-24 13:53 (Reply)
dr. Bliss ... If I understand correctly, epilepsy is sometimes described as mis-wiring in the brain. And dyslexia supposedly is also. This doesn't seem strange to me, since in my youth [the 1950s] I worked at the Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as a Purchasing Assistant, and in my spare time there I would disassemble various sections [chassis] of the computer to re-use the components. If this super-simple [in today's terms] computer was so complex as it seemed when I disassembled it, the human brain is worse by an order of 10. How fatally easy it must be to cross a wire or fail to attach it.

Meta ... I don't know if I'm correct, but I always think of endogenous elements of anything as being part of the Original Blueprint, so to speak, which would be the equivalent of 'hardwiring.' mis-wiring being when later fools get into the Grand Design and mess things up.

But what do I know. I can only disassemble when it comes to Grand Designs. Especially in computers.

Marianne
#3 Marianne Matthews on 2009-03-24 15:00 (Reply)
Marianne,

Hard to tell by Dr. Bliss' description there as the terms blend somewhat. My impression of hardwiring comes as a child is growing up and dealing with the outside world setting up the wiring that's already there. It can go very wrong. For the endogenous, yes, I think that is what happens within the brain by nature and is that which causes true mental disease. I'm with Jappy on that - this stuff needs a new name. I tend to believe most depression is caused by outside influences, circumstantial depression, if you like. Shit happens. If it happens when you're a little kid or young adult, it rewires our perception of the world. Is that a disease? No. I do think that the brain can make one more susceptible to depression because of heredity, or as in Dr. Bliss' article, lack of brain, but for most depressions..... If we have a fat, fulsome, squishy brain and find ourselves knee-walking depressed, what then?
#3.1 Meta on 2009-03-24 18:16 (Reply)
Nice topic Dr Joy. I have always hated giving an economic term to a mental condition. We have to rename this disease. Melancholy just doesn't cut the mustard. I have waged war with this mischievous, cunning, bastard most of my adult life. Regrettable I have lost many battles, but I always live to fight another day.
I have had 2 major surgeries in my life and compared to the battles I have fought with depression ,the surgeries are like a walk in the park.

Are you still going to do the sun lotion shots for the Farm?
You sexy shrink! Ciao bella.
#4 jappy on 2009-03-24 17:32 (Reply)
I think we are talking about formally-defined clinical depression, not misery and despair.
Yes, I meant mis-wired hard-wiring.
Could mis-wiring result in a chemical abnormality? Maybe, but I doubt it.

Jappy: Hang in there, buddy.
#5 Dr. B. on 2009-03-24 19:55 (Reply)
Gotcha on the clinical depression vs. misery and despair, Doc. Ne'er the twain shall meet, eh?

I'm not sure I understand the mis-wired equaling the hardwiring, but I think it's sematics. A child, young adult can be hardwired by outside forces - parents, trauma, experiences. 'Mis-wiring' indicates something that goes wrong within the brain itself absent any outside influences. The article suggests this. Either way, both could cause chemical imbalance through the adregeneric system and cause depression. Endogenous or exogenous, the depression rules. And how utterly insulting it is to have someone imply that one's misery and despair doesn't count as depression. "Get over it. You're pissing me off already with your despair. Jeeez.."
#6 Meta on 2009-03-24 21:20 (Reply)
Meta ... I agree with you and jappy about needing a better name for serious depression, which can become a large, long-time monster within you and difficult to fight. I find that, as I grow older, it becomes harder to fight off the effects of depression, since the end of my road is visible and ever present to me. So I take what steps I can to fight it. I don't watch depressing movies and TV, and that's getting harder to do, since almost all movies end sadly, and TV is full of brutality and violence. Downs is less subject to being depressed than I am, so I simply leave the room when things get ugly on the screen.

I have surrounded myself with cheerful books which end happily -- and believe me, that's harder than it sounds, since almost all literary fiction ends unhappily. At least it does if the author is aiming for a literary prize. So I find books that are pleasant and cozy and not meant to be 'improving.' I've been reading since I was three years old, quite constantly, so I've read enough 'great books' and improving books for two lifetimes. Now I please myself, and enjoy pleasant fantasies, knowing perfectly well that life is very real, very earnest, and many times very ugly, but I don't have to wallow in it all the time.

Anyway, that's the way I'm fighting depression, so far.

Marianne
#7 Marianne Matthews on 2009-03-24 22:58 (Reply)
Thanks for your openness MM. I've twenty years in which to prepare myself for your age. I'll remember what you've said here.

Hell, who am I kidding, I use it today. Just because it's on the plate doesn't mean you have to eat it.
#7.1 Luther McLeod on 2009-03-24 23:23 (Reply)
Great comment, Marianne. I could not agree with you more about shows on TV and violence..... anything violent I have to avoid and have since I was young. But you describe something different here that is not only beautifully written and thus totally understandable (reasonable), it shows your resilience and determination to take the matter into your own hands. It's really hard to do sometimes, as you say, but I applaud your efforts.

Call it the 'blues'. Your mind can envision an old black guy playing a sax and putting his heart into those blue notes.... I like that - art from the heart soothing the mind. And you can think during those blue moments that you have some good friends out there who join you upon occasion.
#8 Meta on 2009-03-24 23:35 (Reply)

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