Depression\nis an extremely complex illness which makes it so much harder to treat than if\nyou just have physical pain, which means you can take a painkiller. No one\nknows precisely what causes depressions but it can arise for a variety of\nreasons. A serious medical illness can bring on a bout of depression or maybe\nlife changes such as the death of a loved one. Some people have depression run\nthrough their family history, and then there are some people that just have\nfeelings of sadness and loneliness for no reason that is identifiable to cause\ndepression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Extensive\nresearch has been done on depression and people who have it and researchers\nhave seen differences in brains of people who are diagnosed with clinical\ndepressions<\/a> compared with those you don\u2019t. One of the findings is the hippocampus\nwhich is a small part of the brain vital for storing memories, is shown to be\nsmaller in people who depression compared to those who have never had it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nreason this can cause depression is that by having a smaller hippocampus<\/a> means there are fewer\nserotonin receptors and serotonin in one of the chemicals in the brain that\nallows communications across different regions of the brain that involve\nprocessing emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately,\nthere is no real evidence, nor can scientists explain, why a hippocampus may be\nsmaller on one person and not on another. There are studies that show the\nstress hormone cortisol is produced to excess in people with depression and\nthat maybe it\u2019s this cortisol production that has a shrinking effect on the\ndevelopment of hippocampus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other\nexperts believe that it is just genetics and that you are born with a smaller\nhippocampus which subsequently means you are more inclined to suffer from\ndepression. However, there are many other parts of the brain that are involved\nwith depression and therefore, it is likely that no one brain pathway accounts\nfor depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Depression\ndefinitely runs in the family histories, so how does genetics relate to the\nrisk of unhappiness? The fact that it does means that there is perhaps a genetic\nlink as children and parents of people with depression are thought to be at a\nmuch higher risk themselves than those that don\u2019t have family close family\nmembers with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\ncombination of genes interacting with each other can contribute to different\nkinds of depression yet there is little evidence to suggest that there is a\ngene that is solely responsible for depression, instead lots of genes that each\nthen contribute a small effect towards depression when they are mixed with\ndaily environmental factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many\npeople with substance abuse<\/a> problems have some form of\nmajor or clinical depression, and even if drugs or alcohol give a short term\nrelief to these feelings, they ultimately make the depression a lot worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s\nnever been a secret that there is a strong link between substance abuse and\nmental illness, and people that struggle with both is called a co-occuring\ndisorder. The relationship between the two means that people who use hard drugs\nare more likely to suffer from depression and vice versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIs it Genetics<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Use of Drugs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Examples\nof this can be:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Chronic illness <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n