Three surprising effects of depression

The depression It is, perhaps, the most recognized psychopathology and with the highest prevalence rates, along with others such as disorders related to anxiety.

It is estimated that, only in the Kingdom of Spain, a 25% of the population suffers from a depressive disorder, and a fifth of these people suffer from a serious disorder.

• It may interest you: "Types of depression"

Discovering the curious effects of depression

However, beyond the lack of hope, sadness, lack of energy and asthenia, the consequences of depression also develop in other areas causing really curious changes in our personality and in our cognition.

1. Depression compresses the size of the brain

An investigation carried out by scientists at Yale University found that depression can lead to a reduction in brain volume, because the neurons in some regions are smaller in size and lose density. Consequently, neural connections are disrupted. To reach this conclusion, the brain tissue of people with and without depression was studied in a comparative way.

It seems that this effect is due to GATA1, a protein that contributes to the regulation of the transcription of genetic material and that is activated in the brain of people affected by a depressive condition.

GATA1 inhibits the expression of some of the genotypes that participate in the construction of connections synaptic, affecting the dimensions and complexity of the dendrites, basic agents for the production of the synapse. This loss of volume not only causes alterations in the affectivity and cognitive capacity of the subject, but also causes a decrease in the mass of the prefrontal cortex, whose function is to facilitate decision-making, impulse control and management emotional.

2. Depression obscures memories

A study conducted at Brigham Young University revealed that depressive disorders have the effect of blurring memories. For years now, depression has been associated with a faulty memory, but the mechanism that caused this phenomenon was unknown.

The study recruited subjects diagnosed with depressive pictures, and others without psychopathological pictures. The subjects were exposed to a series of objects that appeared on a screen. Later, the same objects were presented to them, and they had to indicate if they had seen them before, if some object resembled one seen before, or if it was a new object unrelated to those seen previously.

After studying the results, the researchers found that the subjects with depression had a greater tendency to confuse some objects, marking them as similar to others that had appeared before. This suggests that depression does not cause amnesia but rather a decrease in the precision of detail. It could be said that people with depression have a less skillful, blurry memory, and therefore cannot remember some details.

3. Depression sharpens perception of time

Despite the fact that depression is always perceived as something purely negative, this third point indicates a small psychophysiological advantage. Research conducted at the University of Hertfordshire found that depressed people have more accurate time perception than non-depressed people.

The research recruited subjects with moderate depression, and others without a diagnosis of disorder. Both groups had to listen to five tones whose duration varied between 5 and 60 seconds, and immediately afterwards they were instructed to remember a figure (it was a disruptive task), and then they were asked to issue as concrete an approximation as possible of the duration of each tune.

It was surprising to see that, almost without exception, people without depression estimated the time of the tones exceeding real time, while, on the other hand, people with depression were much better at the weather.

The reason for this could be found in a controversial concept, called "depressive realism." Depressive realism holds that people with depression are unaffected by positive and optimistic expectations that do alter the perception of reality in people who do not suffer from depression.