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Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#171

Post by polalavik »

burglekutt wrote: post #142

Sometimes I feel like programming is physically and mentally designed to create bad health and mood, at least if you’re not very careful about how you’re _being_ while doing it. Maybe it’s just me, but I have to work hard to avoid: - Bad posture, hunching towards the monitor - Scrunching the face - Feeling impatient because my fingers and the computer can’t keep up with where I am in my mind - “Damn you, computer!” f…

Ya I’m really interested in what I do and side projects I work on but I feel like absolute shit after focusing on either. Not sure how to solve this. it feels unsustainable to find equal amounts of joy(?) and ~bad feelings physically and mentally~ from partaking.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#172

Post by Rury »

bendbro wrote: post #123
flippinburgers wrote: post #118

I have had what seems to me to be depression for most of my life (40+ years). I have been fortunate enough to have a kid and, now, I guess I just don't have time to be depressed or something because most of my thoughts of ending life etc have, quite thankfully, gone away. I'm really not trying to be off-putting when I say this but I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people n…

I agree, I wonder if depression is not always rooted in some random, mental problem but rather a reasonable reaction to reality.

I'd wager that depression is merely a symptom of learned helplessness, a natural response to being repeatedly powerless in circumstances one is vested in the outcome of. A result of being repeatedly and extremely frustrated, and/or being in circumstances of great cognitive dissonance despite ones attempts to resolve it.

It seems to me the best way to fight depression, is to contimually distract yourself (particularly with an activity you can control), from whatever is depressing you. As if, by being busy, so much, that you end up forgetting about those depressing things. I know it's easier said than done, but to me, it seems to work if you're able, whereas focusing or dwelling on the depressing things, seems to further depression.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#174

Post by mjevans »

munificent wrote: post #88
asdfman123 wrote: post #5

> “It’s almost as if you’d already decided how you were going to feel, and then everything you were sensing was filtered through that,” he said. “The mood has become primary.” This is 1000% what depression feels like, once you've properly come to terms with it. Your brain seems absolutely compelled to apply the most horrific, negative interpretation to everything that happens to you. Even when you understand it's wro…

Anxiety feels similarly. The most valuable thing I've gotten from the past several years of therapy is a better model for how humans actually process information. The simple model a lot of people have is: 1. Receive some stimulus, input, or experience. 2. Process and understand it. 3. Respond to that emotionally. What we actually do is more like: 1. Receive some stimulus, input, or experience. 2. This data is way too…

About 2-3 hours after you posted, a different section of this discussion was started bendbro and Rury;

My personal belief is that SOME cases of your Z are caused by a 'learned helplessness' situational conditioning filter. The world isn't always fair and sometimes even earnest effort that in an ideal world should yield some sort of positive result has none.

Hypothetically the human social creature evolved in small tribes / large families. Possibly in those cases slight negative reactions like that would be corrected by the presence of the family. In the distraction model of recovery possibly by redirection to a more useful effort that would yield positive outcomes for the individual and group.

In modern cities, it is very easy to end up alone, or nearly alone, with very few to rely on. Even if someone has friends in a city they might be real effort to reach, and that is assuming they've got time. If there's that effort involved maybe you don't even hang out with them and drift apart until even chance meetings cost effort and thought.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#175

Post by h0l0cube »

nonethewiser wrote: post #170
h0l0cube wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people not having families As a child raised by a depressed and emotionally unstable parent, I have to disagree. Being well-adjusted is a good predictor for being a good parent. Even if in some cases people with mental health issues have a positive transformative experience, it's at best a dice role to treat it as therapy, and early chil…

> I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people not having families Keyword here is “some.” One instance that does not fall in this category doesnt suggest there arent some cases that do fall in this category.

I saw the keyword, and as I qualified in the full comment, it’s a risk and one that shouldn’t be borne by the children

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#176

Post by naasking »

flippinburgers wrote: post #118

I have had what seems to me to be depression for most of my life (40+ years). I have been fortunate enough to have a kid and, now, I guess I just don't have time to be depressed or something because most of my thoughts of ending life etc have, quite thankfully, gone away. I'm really not trying to be off-putting when I say this but I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people n…

> now, I guess I just don't have time to be depressed or something because most of my thoughts of ending life etc have, quite thankfully, gone away

Negative thought loops, aka rumination, are strongly implicated in many kinds of depression. If you no longer have time to indulge in ruminating, that's one way to break such loops.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#177

Post by naasking »

bendbro wrote: post #123
flippinburgers wrote: post #118

I have had what seems to me to be depression for most of my life (40+ years). I have been fortunate enough to have a kid and, now, I guess I just don't have time to be depressed or something because most of my thoughts of ending life etc have, quite thankfully, gone away. I'm really not trying to be off-putting when I say this but I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people n…

I agree, I wonder if depression is not always rooted in some random, mental problem but rather a reasonable reaction to reality.

> but rather a reasonable reaction to reality

The theory you're describing is "depressive realism". It's hotly contested. In some ways, depressed people can make more accurate assessments, as most people have an optimism bias, but their assessments get unrealistically over-pessimistic as time passes.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#178

Post by ninala »

malauxyeux wrote: post #139
flippinburgers wrote: post #118

I have had what seems to me to be depression for most of my life (40+ years). I have been fortunate enough to have a kid and, now, I guess I just don't have time to be depressed or something because most of my thoughts of ending life etc have, quite thankfully, gone away. I'm really not trying to be off-putting when I say this but I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people n…

Maybe not even having kids, but being engaged in something fully. From neuroscience, there's the default mode network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network > It is best known for being active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. Apparently, activation of the DMN is correlated to rumination, itself correlated to…

Broadly speaking, engaging in a task activates the task-positive network, which actively suppresses the default mode network [1][2][3]. This likely happens during meditation [4], as during properly done meditation, one is supposed to be focused on the task of breathing. But this can be interrupted, particularly by stray thoughts/salience/attention shifts [5].

[1] "The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks", https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0504136102

[2] "The Brain's Default Mode Network", https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-neuro-0710... {search for 'task-positive'}

[3] "Neural antagonistic mechanism between default-mode and task-positive networks", https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092523122...

[4] "Mantra Meditation Suppression of Default Mode Beyond an Active Task: a Pilot Study", https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41465-017-0028-1

[5] "Modulatory interactions between the default mode network and task positive networks in resting-state", https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4017816/

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#179

Post by alexchantavy »

flippinburgers wrote: post #118

I have had what seems to me to be depression for most of my life (40+ years). I have been fortunate enough to have a kid and, now, I guess I just don't have time to be depressed or something because most of my thoughts of ending life etc have, quite thankfully, gone away. I'm really not trying to be off-putting when I say this but I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people n…

I think for myself it comes down to feeling like you have purpose so that you can wholly commit to something where you’re so busy that you don’t have time to get yourself depressed.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#180

Post by aerophilic »

mynameisash wrote: post #102

My son, who is diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and OCD, and who has been in talk therapy, on SSRIs, and other interventions for years, recently started LENS therapy, also called neurofeedback. (I'm on mobile device, otherwise I'd find the link.) It sounds a lot like a form of TMS. He's had something like 7 sessions, each lasting maybe 15 minutes. The results are nothing short of astounding for our family. H…

This sounds amazing… is there some place where you can learn more?

Doing a quick search, I found the following: https://www.enrichingfamiliesnow.com/lens-neurofeedback-1

However, are there better links?

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