Head for help

DEPRESSION MANIFESTS IN MANY WAYS, AND CAN CAUSE STRUCTURAL CHANGES TO THE BRAIN. THE KEY THING IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT AND SEEK TREATMENT, BEIT COUNSELLING, MEDICATION OR ANY OF THE NEW THERAPIES

- MINI P. THOMAS

Manjiri Indurkar from Jabalpur was baffled as she started losing interest in everything she used to love. “I used to be a regular and studious kid. But suddenly I stopped going to school,”recalls the 32-year-old. “I would just watch TV, not leave the house unless pushed and not meet friends. I did nothing. But I still didn’t know what this was.”Her diagnosis of depression happened much later, after she moved to Delhi. ‘’Those days, I was crying all the time. It was rough,’’says Indurkar, who was pushed to get treatment by her friends.

Depression is not just feeling sad or being tearful and weepy. The inability to find pleasure from activities one usually enjoys—anhedonia—is also tantamount to depression, says Dr Philip John, senior consultant psychiatrist, Peejays Policlinic, Kochi (peejaycl@gmail. com). “The other symptoms of depression include insomnia or hypersomnia, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, poor concentration, poor memory, fatigue or lethargy, suicidal thoughts, agitation and change of appetite,”he says.

Depression can cause structural changes in the brain, too. “If you experience depression for a long time, your brain cells degenerate. There could even be decreased volume in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. A good number of studies show that depressive people lose their grey matter; some lose white matter as well,” says Dr Johann Philip, consultant in psychiatry at Peejays. A study led by Dr Jeff Meyer of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, showed that people with persistent and untreated depression that lasted more than ten years are found to have significantly high levels of brain inflammation. The study published in The Lancet Psychiatry also throws light on how depression changes the brain over the years.