Biological Theory of Depression

Abstract

Depression is a prevalent and devastating disease which imposes intense effects on neural function and structure. Nonetheless, the neuropathology and aetiology of depression remain poorly recognized and understood. Although, antidepressant drugs exist, they are not thought to be ideal for treatment, as only a portion of patients are treated, causing a delay in therapeutic onset, and the accurate mechanism of these drugs also remain to be clarified. Several theories of depression do exist. The objective of this article is to pursue the logic of a biological approach to depression, using some concepts currently proposed to characterize the functioning of the brain. This paper will evaluate a biological theory of depression i.e. neurotrophic theory of depression

Biological Theory of Depression

Introduction

Depression is a pathological mental state that an expression of psychic and somatic time. The emotional state of depression is characterized by severe sadness and depression, feelings of worthlessness and guilt, social withdrawal, insomnia, loss of appetite and sexual desire, or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities (Shirayama, et al. 2002). While a sad person is not supported by others and believes ultimately to be unworthy, a possible overcoming of one's own suffering, the depressed tried to draw all the suffering on itself, a mental and physical state of suffering. Depressed people see no hope in the future, are full of worry, fear and despondency, and many have lost their will to live. Each problem appears unsolvable them, they make themselves self-blame and neglect personal hygiene. In this state, the person shall, in its new reality, and the longer this condition persists, the more he alienates himself from his fellow men.

It is conventional to say that depression is put in place as a result of a life event which the depressed was unable to cope. This led to a hypothesis that depression is associated with an accumulation of stress, after a while, become unmanageable, so that the subject would have no other way to cope with stress than adopting a depressive downturn (Chourbaji, et al. 2011). We know enough about the effects of stress on the brain, and you have an idea of the ways in which stress can disrupt brain function, that is to say, upset this balance is parallelism, hierarchy and coordination. In fact, studies have shown that depressed are not exposed to more stress than others, so we can not speak of the amount of stress, but we must speak in terms of quality, field qualitatively different from the depressed, that is to say, vulnerability to stress.

Literature Review

On the neurobiological level, the question of the relationship between stress and depression, and may be reduced to that of the existence of flaws in the organization of the brain, which faults can be expected to occur during brain maturation, that is to say in the evolution of the individual (as a child, for example), and who as an adult will react to certain stresses in implementing this particular mental state what depression. Current issues of neurobiology are ...