Chronic Stress May Help Cause Depression
Mouse studies are clarifying the link

MONDAY, April 17 (HealthDay News) -- Is the anxiety that often accompanies chronic depression a cause or effect of the illness?

It's a longstanding question among experts, but new research in mice suggests that chronic stress may be a trigger -- not a symptom of -- depression.

The findings could also help improve treatments for the disorder, says a research team from Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, in Boston.

It was already known that people with depression tended to have higher levels of the human stress hormone cortisol, but it wasn't clear whether this was a cause or effect of depression. The new mouse study suggests that long-term exposure to cortisol may actually contribute to depression.

For this study, the researchers exposed mice to acute (24 hours) and chronic (17 to 18 days) doses of the rodent stress hormone corticosterone. The hormone was put in the animals' drinking water so that the stress of injections would not cloud the results.

Compared to the mice with short-term exposure, the mice with chronic exposure took much longer to emerge from a small dark compartment into a brightly lit open field. This is a common behavioral test of anxiety in animals. The results suggest that the mice with chronic exposure were more fearful and less willing to explore their new environment.

The researchers also found that mice with chronic exposure showed dulled reactions to being startled, another indication that their nervous system was overwhelmed.

The National Institute of Mental Health has more about depression.

I better cut down on their dose of corticosterone.

I've found that whenever somebody tampers with MY drinking water, I have a tendency to stay in my small dark apartment and just read reviews.

I also become more fearful and less willing to TOFTT.

Well, i'm chronically stressed and chronically depressed, but as I remember way bak to my kidhood the stress came first.  And never left.

is that some behavior may be a perfectly reasonable response to circumstances - they don't seem to have the concept, that critters do in fact react (with many variations) to their history, ie, what has happened to them.

What they are looking for here is a drug to make people happy when their bodies are (rightly or wrongly) telling them they should be sad.   Then they will sell this drug, and in some cases they will mandate its use, telling people or courts that they are "sick" and must take the drug.

That Rod Serling was a visionary.

Because the psychs provide the rationale, and of course the consumers provide the demand - specifically the demand for glib answers that relieve them of any responsibility.   And the legal and educational institutions share responsibility in that they do the same thing - insist on glib answers that relieve them of any continuing responsibility.

I have found that if you know enough to ask the right questions in a non-adversarial manner, many psychs will admit their doubts about the issues.   And I've found that many have put their doubts in writing - some are very loud, and others are very academic.

But it is fundamentally a political phenomenon, and a very disturbing one - puzzling people are increasingly being dismissed with a drug and label, and being parked quietly on the margins of society.  This is not progress, it's a lie.  We would much rather admit that we don't know, than relegate many otherwise useful people to a psych diagnosis and lifetime of meds.

everyone from my lawyer, my MD and even my shrink said that I should immediately go on Prozac or some such similar drug.

Sure I had some depression about the situation and expressed it when I felt a need to, but I was not crazy.  I resisted and came through it fine.  Everyone's response was "Well there's no reason for you to suffer if you don't have to."  Well, this is not a toothache.  This is a real life situation and I wanted to feel it for the sake of learning about myself.

As John Lennon once said: "Won't do you no harm to feel your own pain"

but (a) the patient must be involved, and (b) what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

My strong feeling is that involuntary medical treatment must be limited to narrow circumstances.  When we start messing with a person's head, we need to have some respect, even in the most dire situations.

I suspect that meds that distort a reasonable reaction to a situation may be generally misconceived.   Yes, it's important to work through issues, and deal with them.  If you can handle it, it does add depth to a person's life.      What is the point of living, if you can't know the range of life?  

What are we doing, delegating our philosophy and values to a psych who sees you an hour, puts a label and prescription on you?   Are we no longer the species that conquers by the power of our minds?

You put your finger on it exactly.

We are nothing without the mind, just empty pods, so why try to dull it/

Do you have TER up on the viewscreen of the Enterprise all the time?

devolving.

We are DEVO.

That was thirty years ago.

Mark Mothersbaug.

Now he writes music for Kids' Saturday morning cartoons.

Point proved.

and human history will continue as it has, with different branches veering off the family tree to fill different ecological niches.

Just in our own lifetime, we have witnessed evangelical fundamentalist churches evolve to fill the need for mindless morons.  These specimens can often be identified by their bumper stickers.

for opportunities and threats...