Chapter 18- Depression

Lecture Notes

1. Depression
a. With depression we see cognitive symptoms, physiological symptoms, and feelings
symptoms
i. Cognitive
1. Memory impairment
a. Depression is associated with increased stress responsiveness.
Remember how high levels of stress hormones can damage the
hippocampus’s ability to form and retrieve memories? Yep,
that’s what’s going on here
2. Rumination on negative thoughts
a. Can’t seem to stop focusing on specific negative thoughts
3. Confirmation bias
a. Amplify events that confirm our negative thoughts and dismiss
events that contradict those negative thoughts
i. Example:
Thought- Nobody likes me, I’m all alone:
But didn’t (insert friend here) invited you to dinner?
Yeah, but they didn’t actually want me to go, that’s why
they didn’t call me when they said they were going to
ii. Physiological
1. Lower physical energy
a. Known as psychomotor retardation
i. Retardation- To slow, diminish, or hinder
ii. Psychomotor- Psycho refers to the mind, Motor refers
to movement
1. Psychomotor retardation- The slowing or
diminishing of physical movement as a result of
a psychological cause
b. Simple things like getting out of bed, taking a shower, getting
dressed is extremely effortful and exhausting
2. Neurobiological changes
a. Monoamine hypothesis
i. Depression is caused by low monoamine activity
1. Monoamines including serotonin,
norepinephrine, and dopamine
ii. Role of the 5-HT transporter
1. The process of neural communication involves
releasing neurotransmitters into the synapse so
that they can diffuse across the synaptic cleft
and attach to receptor sites located on the
neighboring neuron. Once those NTs attach
they then detach from the receptor sites and
 hang out in the synapse. We need to then clear
out the synapse in order to make way for other
messages to come through.
2. For serotonin the 5-HT (serotonin) reuptake
transporter is in charge of collecting already
used serotonin neurotransmitters and
repackaging them to be used again.
a. There are two versions of this
transporter: Short and Long
i. Individuals who experience
stressful events in their lives
(abuse, neglect, romantic
disasters, loss of a loved one,
etc.) and possess the short
version of the transporter are
much more likely to develop
depression compared to those
who possess the long version
b. In order to treat depression we can use
an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitor)
i. This tells the transporter
specifically for serotonin to stop
doing its job. Therefore,
serotonin hangs out in the
synapse longer, increasing the
ability for it to attach to the
receptor sites on the
neighboring cell delivering its
happy message
b. BDNF Model
i. Another idea about depression has to do with the fact
that every time we release neurotransmitters we also
release growth factor.
1. Growth factor is what tells our cells to keep
synaptic connections because we are using
them
a. Specifically, every neural connection
has a suicide program (apoptosis) such
that if we don’t deliver the growth
factor we destroy that connection in
order that we aren’t wasting resources
on maintaining connections that we
don’t use
 b. So growth factor like BDNF (Brain
Derived Neurotrophic Factor) prevent
us from going through apoptosis and
getting rid of a connection
ii. Every time we release serotonin we also release BDNF,
so the thought is, what if depression is less about the
serotonin and more about the BDNF
1. Studies using rat models injected depressed rats
with BDNF (not manipulating the serotonin
system at all) and found remarkable
improvements in the depressive symptoms!
a. This could be the direction we head as
far as research and drugs that help
correct depression, it’s very exciting!
iii. Feelings
1. As a result of the physiological changes (which many of them are caused
by cognitive evaluations resulting in engaging the stress reaction),
depressed individuals have some distinctive consequences in how they
feel
a. Depression is characterized by feelings of worthlessness,
hopelessness, and the general feeling that everything is bad and
just keeps getting worse.