Results of a large scale study indicate a considerable link between inherited depression and brain cortex thinning that occurs in the hemisphere.
Dr. Myrna Weissman led that study which published in the online journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Dr. Bradley Peterson was the first author of that study who is director of MRI Research in Psychiatry department at Columbia University Medical Center.
Peterson, Weissman and colleagues noticed the people with higher risk of becoming the victim of depression had 28% thinner brain cortex than those who didn’t have any known risk for the disease.
According to the researchers these results were quite amazing for them” “This rate of brain thinning is equal to brain loss amount that could be seen in the people with schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease,” Peterson says.
“The amount of difference was so great that we couldn’t even believe it, so we checked it again and again to find out all the alternative explanations, but the same difference occurred again and again.”
Explaining about how thinner cortex has link to depression, Peterson says that this thinness seems to affect a person’s ability to pay proper attention and make sense of emotional and social responses from other people.
In their study, Peterson and colleague also tested the levels of inattention of the participants of the study
