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| Brain thickening |
According to Peterson, director of the Institute of the Developing Mind at CHLA and professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California,
Our findings suggest that thickening of the cerebral cortex is a compensatory, neuroplastic response that helps to reduce the severity of depressive symptoms. Patients off medication have a thickened cortex, and the thicker it is, the fewer the symptoms they have. Treatment with medication then reduces the severity of symptoms, which in turn reduces the need for biological compensation in the brain – so that their cortex becomes thinner, reaching thickness values similar to those in healthy volunteers.
Patients were randomized to get dynamic medicine duloxetine, a specific serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Amid the trial, patients getting drug experienced noteworthy change of side effects contrasted and patients accepting fake treatment. In pharmaceutical treated patients, cortical thickness declined toward qualities found in sound volunteers while fake treatment treated patients demonstrated a slight thickening of the cortex. As indicated by Bansal, an analyst at CHLA and teacher of pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, this finding proposes that fake treatment treated patients keep on requiring remuneration for their progressing side effects.
According to Bansal,
Although this study was conducted in adults, the methodology developed – pairing a randomized controlled trial with MRI scanning – can be applied to many other populations in both children and adults. Also, our observations of neuroplasticity suggest new biological targets for treatment of persons with neuropsychiatric disorders.
This is a new neuroscience discovery in the research frontiers.
Further reading: Genetics and Environment Impact depression.
