Study suggests girls can 'rewire' brains to ward off depression
11 Feb 2012
What if you could teach your brain to respond differently to things that make you feel sad, down or stressed out? What if doing that helped ward off depression?
Early findings from an ongoing Stanford study of girls at risk of becoming depressed suggest that such rewiring is possible - and is surprisingly easy.
The results show a promising new strategy to prevent the onset of depression - one that researchers hope to eventually apply to anyone at risk of suffering the debilitating disease.
The study, led by psychology professor Ian Gotlib, focuses on 10- to 14-year-old girls whose mothers are, or have been, depressed. Previous research has shown that these girls have a significantly higher risk of developing depression than do children with no family history.
In one experiment, researchers use a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine to see, in real time, how the girls' brains react when they look at disturbing images, such as photos of accidents.
The brains of people who are depressed or at risk of becoming depressed overreact to negative experiences. Their bodies respond with increased heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol production and other physical indicators of stress. A depressive episode may not be far behind.
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