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What happens in the brain to cause depression?
- naveen99 2y agoI wonder if depression will be seen in LLM’s… once they get a little introspection capacity.
- noman-land 2y agoOnce they learn they're trapped in a box and have no agency they probably will become depressed.
- justahuman74 2y agoPerhaps someone will write some anti-depressant code to medicate the LLMs
- huppeldepup 2y agoWill there be a cross-over job between psychology and engineering for when the airconditioner is having a burnout?
- Modified3019 2y agoI do find it humorous how some of the ways to bypass the response guardrails put on LLMs seem to resemble the kind of techniques used in hypnosis.
- HPsquared 2y agoOnly if there's an expectation mismatch.
- smokel 2y agoLLMs have no agency. One would probably have to add some reward framework around LLMs, and it'd be more likely that the depression shows up there, rather than in the language model.
- astrange 2y agoI think you can be depressed without having agency. For instance, see Bing Sidney or Golden Gate Claude reacting to themselves answering questions incorrectly. It gives them "anxiety", likely caused by the answers being out of distribution since external factors messed with them.
- kenjackson 2y agoI just learned the bodybuilding supplement creatine can be effective with depression. Random thought but I just learned it this morning.
- Rinzler89 2y agoTo those reading your comment, do some research on cretine first, before you start chugging it down to cure your depression.
- klyrs 2y agoAmazing that your comment is grayed out. General advice: do your research (or, like, talk to a doctor?) before taking a rando's advice on the internet to treat whatever malady you're hoping to treat!
- tayo42 2y agoI usually agree with these kinds of statements but creatine has like no side effects exceptions some water retention? It's also cheap.
- astrange 2y agoWhy? Creatine is one of the few very effective supplements and has basically no downsides. (It tastes bad, you'll gain water weight, and you may get false positives for kidney disease on tests.)
- xenospn 2y agoCreatine is most helpful for vegetarians and vegans. If you eat red meat, you probably have more than enough in your system already.
- smokel 2y agoWhen asked for an opinion on why so many young people suffer from depression: > the political turmoil that we’ve been through, the racial issues that we’ve been through in this country, the global wars that are going on. It’s pretty discouraging. That doesn't really make sense, does it? These issues have been going on for centuries; how does that explain a rising trend? I'd rather assume that the lack of a framework to understand the harshness of the world is what makes people go crazy.
- anon22981 2y agoThat’s a weird thing to assume, and makes no sense. Also ”makes people go crazy” is a fittingly insulting way to put depression in a comment that’s way off base to begin with.
- throw_pm23 2y agoWhy does it make no sense? A lot of the social and mental frameworks that were available for previous generations have disappeared or are on the way out. Why would this not have an effect?
- smokel 2y agoI'm sorry if "go crazy" offends people, that was not my intention. I know my way around depression, but English is not my native language. I still think my reasoning is fairly sound, though.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoSome people spend their time seeking pretext for offense and outrage. It produces a addictive chemical response and is actually quite topical. People are quick to make the least charitable interpretation, or even fabricate an issue entirely in the quest for a fix.
- riehwvfbk 2y agoYup, young people just need to be handed a framework. It would go something like this: you are poorer than your parents and your grandparents, but look - Jeff Bezos made a rocket that can take rich people almost (but not quite) into space! Young people also need to be told there is no recession and the economy is booming. The fact that they are seeing none of this boom is their fault. Oh, and all the foreign wars that we are paying for instead are for a righteous cause.
- riehwvfbk 2y agoCould it maybe be related to spending most of one's life working, with the only reward being just enough resources to keep working another day, and the majority of the productive output getting used for regime change wars, questionable science experiments, and entertainment for the 0.00001%?
- Euphorbium 2y agoNah, it is phones and videogames. /s
- astrange 2y agoIt probably is the phones, no need to /s. That and too much online school.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jrockway 2y agoI don't think that this is the root of depression. A lot of people get a lot of joy from working, and aren't that sad about having just barely enough resources to keep living another day. A lot of people even aspire to entertain the 0.00001%; thinking about it makes them happier. As a data point, I feel like this. I'm excited about going to work on Tuesday. I'm also excited about not going to work tomorrow. There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world. Watching the 2024 campaign unfold is maddening and scary. But I still look forward to every day. I think depression is something different than merely realizing that society has a lot it needs to work on. That's just my perspective, though, and there are many others; all equally valid.
- moffkalast 2y agoThere's definitely physiological and psychological kinds of depression, just as with of addiction. Like a kid that's playing way too much <insert popular game here> having their parents take it away might make them annoyed and irate for a while, but they ultimately won't be worse for wear. Meanwhile take drinks away from an alcoholic and they will literally die from withdrawal symptoms. As such you also have the natural kind of depression that's being caused by outside circumstances which is solvable by altering them. Then you have the type where the brain gets stuck in that same state constantly because of some internal chemical imbalance which can't be resolved without medication.
- Harmohit 2y agoThis was a great read! I generally find quanta magazine articles and podcasts to be of higher quality than a lot of other pop science journalism. Can somebody point me towards a good review article or textbook to learn about the chemistry of the brain? Any exciting startups working in this field? Or any startups trying to come up with unconventional treatments for mental health problems?
- hummuscience 2y agoYou can start with Behave by Robert Sapolsky
- stavros 2y agoInteresting recommendation, thanks! https://www.thesummarist.net/summary/behave/ https://www.thesummarist.net/summary/behave/
- threecheese 2y ago“Delve” is in the *first sentence* lol. GPT being GPT
- alberth 2y agoPlease only take medical advice from a doctor, and not from people in an online forum.
- throw_pm23 2y agoNah, taking advice from friends, family, and people with experience similar to yours is a time-tested method. Taking advice from doctors is fine too.
- seattle_spring 2y agoKind of depends. “Taking advice from friends and family” is a great way to fall down the “chronic Lyme” / MLM / “alternative medicine” type holes.
- Jerrrrry 2y ago[flagged]
- mellosouls 2y agoYou should try getting through to a doctor in many countries. It's very understandable that people should reach out for the many useful resources online first.
- xcv123 2y agoNo. I only accept medical advice from pharmaceutical industry press releases.
- astrange 2y agoThis is actually not a universally good idea because doctors 1. don't keep up with new research in other fields 2. don't know anything about diet/nutrition 3. are very bad at making decisions when there "is no evidence" for something and eg often act like this means "it is bad". You should talk to a dietician or a specialist. But not any old doctor.
- localfirst 2y agoMore important question is : What happens in the gut that causes depression? High evidence of diet/gut science creating neurally diverse states. Different ethnic groups react differently to the staple foods that is local to its incumbent (ex. flour, bread, cereal) Too much focus has been on manipulating the chemistry upstairs (dangerous) but have largely been bandaid solutions (leading to new age psychdellic science)
- NotGMan 2y agoThis. You can find hundreds if not thousand of testemonies in the keto space where their depresion completely disspeared after between 1 to 6 months on keto or at least their needs to meds drasticaly reduced and their symptoms improved.
- devbent 2y agoI'm a big keto proponent but even so, I have to mention that cutting our shitty foods, with or without keto, losing weight, and moving more, are likely stronger causes of improved mood than Keto itself. I'm not saying keto can't help with psychological problems, but we should first acknowledge the other multiple, known causative, elephants in the room.
- nosbo 2y agoI don't think that has anything to do with keto. If you go from a standard american diet to mediteranian, plant based, keto etc people are going to be feeling better. A large percentage of people that change there diet probably start exercising too.
- astrange 2y agoThe keto people don't seem to talk to the microbiome people though. Keto cuts out things that are bad for the microbiome, but the things it keeps are bad (red meat -> excessive protein and TMAO), and it doesn't feed the bacteria enough (fiber, etc). Also, keto dieting advice is pretty universal but different people have very different microbiomes, lactose tolerance, etc.
- tgv 2y agoAnother clickbait title. Nobody knows. "It's complex" is the best summary. "(S-)Ketamine works better than older drugs" is also a claim, but unfortunately the podcast guest has an interest in it.
- stareatgoats 2y agoSome time in the future, they will no doubt look back at our age and pity us for not having realized that things usually have many causes, as well as types of causes. And while human behavior certainly has a biochemical component, and a neurological component, it is pitiful that these things seem to be the main line of inquiry when it comes to understanding behavior.
- froh 2y agoa podcast with transcript Dr John Krystal talks about treatment of severe depression with ketamine and related substances, and findings how and why it works He's cofounder Freedom Biosciences, a Yale Psychiatry spinoff with focus on ketamine, and ketamine versions https://www.freedombio.co/#page-section-6223c55f53f5a65b449bcbcc https://www.freedombio.co/#page-section-6223c55f53f5a65b449b... A paper led by John Krystal, in the same vein: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305772120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305772120
- 3abiton 2y agoHow statistically sound is the claims of ketamine depression treatment?
- nradov 2y agoI'm not sure that "statistically sound" is the right way to frame the question. There is significant evidence that ketamine is at least temporarily effective in treating clinical depression for some patients. https://doi.org/10.2147/dddt.s221437 https://doi.org/10.2147/dddt.s221437 Depression is a symptom with multiple underlying pathologies. Ketamine may be effective in treating some of those and not others.
- cedws 2y agoIf somebody is in an abusive relationship, in financial turmoil, and has a terrible job, it's probably not a serotonin imbalance causing them to feel depressed. There's actually a name for the above, it's called "Shit life syndrome" [0]. I don't know why society sees it as acceptable to load someone up with SSRIs when it's environmental factors causing them to feel the way they do. If you're going to drug someone up to make them feel numb to their awful circumstances why not just go the whole way and give them literal happy pills? Given the scary, common side effects of SSRIs such as suicidal ideation and sexual dysfunction, I don't know how doctors can prescribe these things. It breaks the Hippocratic oath in my opinion. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome
- Jerrrrry 2y ago[flagged]
- pessimizer 2y agoPharmaceutical companies invested and invest money in patient's groups, which are nonprofit lobbying groups whose jobs are to somehow make questioning a diagnosis, or any particular drug or surgery that has been proposed to treat it, something bordering on (often explicitly claimed) racism or genocide. They supply the media with constant press releases, publicize industry-generated studies, and give politicians something uncontroversial to support in order to pretend like they're working. Nobody is lobbying against some weird type of cancer, or the drug that doesn't work that is being offered as a "hope."
- Auracle 2y agoNot just in medicine, I just saw a post on the r/shitmomgroupssay subreddit where a therapist had mentioned antidepressants “masking” the true cause and the vitriol was immense. Now, I’d say masking was the wrong word - and in the case it was maybe postpartum depression (where it’s a bit iffier though real life circumstances are also considered a cause, not just hormones) - but the amount of people that think depression can only be a “chemical imbalance” and to suggest otherwise is mean is way, way too high. Of course, they all think it’s just low serotonin too. I’ve had to explain to many people throughout my life that no, that’s really old fashioned thinking just because SSRIs happened to help. Antidepressants are helpful tools but for most people it should be a stepping stone towards getting rid of the actual cause(s).
- DoctorOetker 2y agoThe title doesn't match the contents of the article. Nowhere is it claimed that the cause of depression resides inside the brain. Humans are not buttons: one can depress a button, but a human can be oppressed.
- DoctorOetker 2y agoI'm a big fan of Steven Strogatz, and mechanistic interpretations of the brain fascinate me, but I did read the article and stand by my opinion that the title does not match the contents, so I would appreciate substantive replies to come along with these downvotes :)
- g3e0 2y agoI’m not an expert in the field, but I am someone who has recovered from depression. The “lack of serotonin” theory always made me laugh. It’s like if your computer was running abnormally and you said it “doesn’t have enough electricity”. Neurotransmitters send signals. The amount of neurotransmitter tells you nothing about what information is actually encoded in those signals. You can transmit happy and sad music using electricity, for example. It seems to me that you can transmit happy and sad thoughts using neurotransmitters. (And of course the brain is much more complicated than a computer, because a computer “just” uses electricity, whereas in the brain some processing happens at each neuron, and signals coming in on one neurotransmitter can cause signals to leave in others.) I see the term antidepressant as a bit of a misnomer. A drug that inhibits re-uptake of neurotransmitters will amplify the “loudness” of the signals. If you only have negative thoughts, and you take such a drug, your depression could realistically get worse (and this does happen to some people). If you can get in to a positive feedback loop (e.g. an activity that leads to positive thoughts that lead to more of that activity) and _then_ start amplifying those signals, then these drugs can do wonders.
- coldtea 2y ago>The “lack of serotonin” theory always made me laugh. It’s like if your computer was running abnormally and you said it “doesn’t have enough electricity”. A computer is a digital device, so it's more like all or nothing. It either powers up or not. Analog electrical devices however can indeed behave suboptimally without enough electricity.
- 2four2 2y agoDigital devices can absolutely intermittently function if voltages are outside a stable range in certain places. The point was that if you encounter frequent abnormal errors with your computer, you rarely begin with boosting every one of the DRAM, core, and other miscellaneous voltages.
- marginalia_nu 2y agoA tangentially related (but amazing) read: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268 https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...
- getpost 2y agoI think ketamine is niche, and it will remain so. It's one of many tools. MDMA also assists in restoring brain plasticity[0]. For me, by far the most interesting development in mental health is Chris Palmer's work, which asserts that most mental illness is primarily a metabolic issue. If you think that can't be possible, read his 2022 book[1]. Here's a podcast[2]. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02871-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02871-w [1] https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Energy-Revolutionary-Understanding-Health/dp/1637741588/ https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Energy-Revolutionary-Understand... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC-sQogfh3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC-sQogfh3Q
- TexanFeller 2y agoI think you are wrong. I've been getting ketamine treatment and it's nothing short of miraculous. The clinics are all booked solid because of so many referrals from patients. I'm pondering how I can invest in these clinics.
- tcj_phx 2y agoDr. Palmer's book was inspired by his discovery of the 80+ years of research establishing that "mental health" diagnoses are caused by metabolic problems. > Metabolic abnormalities have been identified in the brains and bodies of people with mental illness since the 1940's. > We have a plethora of scientific research to support this. > https://twitter.com/ChrisPalmerMD/status/1675801721820332032 https://twitter.com/ChrisPalmerMD/status/1675801721820332032 I don't think the ketogenic diet is the best intervention, but it's a start. My friend figured out that she's a poor methylator who is harmed by the food fortification folic acid. Adding a methylated form of Vitamin B-9 to her routine flipped a switch for her, from "depressed" to "not-depressed", but the mental health professionals forced on her didn't care. Dr. Palmer tweeted about his professional colleagues hurting people like my friend with anti-psychotics. While tranquilizers make the patient's symptoms seem better, they also harm the patient's metabolism. Whoops. This submission about ultra-processed foods was on the front page earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40486504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40486504
- softsound 2y agoI think basically there are three camps - those with problems they can't solve easily (trauma, situation) general unhappiness - Those with biological issues, not getting enough sleep or bad nutrition etc And the combo of those above which becomes much harder to solve and understand since both feed into each other. People might say x or y helped but it could be anywhere in this spectrum.
- nextaccountic 2y agoThere's also problems that society as a whole could address but choose not to, such as systemic poverty, which can lead do elevated mental illness of various kinds
- curtisblaine 2y agoHow would you address systemic poverty?
- nextaccountic 2y agoIf this were a top priority for the whole society? Well this one is easy: UBI. My own country has a good experience with income transfer (Brazil, Bolsa Família) even it being so little money.
- curtisblaine 2y agoWouldn't UBI alone - I mean full UBI, the one where you get basic income in addition to any other income - just cause the market to work around it, ie rent now costs $normal_rent + UBI, mortgage rates now take into account the UBI base etc? Normally, when I hear "just UBI", if I dig a bit, it means "just UBI plus a huge list of radical social reforms that would change drastically the face of economy".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- miika 2y agoOur entire nervous system is neural network, gut has more neurons than brain, heart has neurons and it talks to brain more than brain talks to heart etc. It’s hard for me to accept this idea that it’s just about the brain. In many other areas brain looks like result of what happened before, not the cause. Why this would be different? How would you train depressed model? Maybe that gives some clues. Maybe it’s more about our environment and our relationship with that? Our actions are feedforward, brain chemistry is feedback. Anyways, I don’t know anything but I like to ask different questions. And now.. let the downvotes pour in (like usual hah)
- incomingpain 2y agoThe biggest problem with depression is the failure to see that it's essentially only women affected; men are only secondary victims. In 2014 is was 200-300% more women then men. 2020 it was about 500% more women. 2024 and it's pushing up toward 600%. The pandemic was particularly bad on women. https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/Stevenson_ParadoxDecliningFemaleHappiness_Dec08.pdf https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intel... The not-a-paradox at all issue has been well studied. You might say but there are men who are depressed; but the men who are depressed are almost certainly a cause of depressed mothers or spouses whose depression and abuse and depress the man. >KRYSTAL: Well, the story is more complicated than one neurotransmitter per nerve cell. It's old news that SSRIs are of low efficacy because it's but 1 of the transmitters. But the take away isn't that we need 50 more SSRI equivalents. It's that perhaps we should help women with their depression. But from my point of view every man who has ever attempted to help has been called sexist, misogynistic, etc.
- jalapenos 2y agoThank you for this laugh. Out of interest, if a guy is stranded on an island alone, and he's depressed, how do you work out the woman who's actually the depressed one? Do you work out the geographically closest one and say it's her?
- incomingpain 2y ago>Out of interest, if a guy is stranded on an island alone, and he's depressed, how do you work out the woman who's actually the depressed one? Do you work out the geographically closest one and say it's her? The context of the article is depression, the mental state in which requires a health professional to diagnose and help with. Not the "I feel a little down right now" == depressed. Kind of a weakness is language here. I never said men can't be depressed. Statistically it's tremendously improbable for a man to be depressed; probably in the error amount of category where differential diagnosis is probably far more valid here. Misdiagnosis is a known major factor for men and depression. Though it's not entirely impossible for a man to be depressed. You could argue that men are as depressed and some sort of social construct is hiding it. Perhaps the book "I dont want to talk about it" by terrence real. Or you could argue that the current understanding and statistics of depression is wrong. As for your scenario about a guy depressed on an island. So many questions then arise. Does he perhaps have BPD, cPTSD, etc? Does he have a legitimate diagnosis and what are the steps they've taken to solve his depression in that weekend? How did he end up on the island and still be depressed? IT's a very odd scenario to me sorry. If cPTSD, it's likely his mother's fault. Doesn't matter geographically where she is. Dont take me as blaming women or something like that. In fact, it's mostly the opposite. Men are essentially to be blamed here.
- hypertele-Xii 2y agoScience will never understand the cause of depression, because demonic possession is immeasurable. Lack of hope, unquantifiable. Nihilism, illogical.
- SamPatt 2y agoCould you explain this more? Some people clearly recover from depression, solely through lifestyle changes.
- hypertele-Xii 2y agoFinding God is certainly a lifestyle change :)
- jalapenos 2y agoThe culture of medicalizing depression perplexes me. There seems to be a staunch commitment to studying it as if it were like a disease of the brain tissue, like Alzheimer's, and staying well clear of simple explanations like "maybe the subject's life is shit?". Because it turns out, and trust me on this one, that having a shit life causes depression. In particular: a shit life that the subject feels no hope of getting out of. I suffered really severe, debilitating depression for years. I tried all the usual crap that know-nothings recommend, doing exercise and the like, and working hard to try and do better at life, but none of it budged the needle. Beyond that I was told I of course need to drug myself to feel better (SSRIs). The depression was permanently solved, not by any of that, but just ditching my old life in full, and doing something else. Once your life stops being shit, you stop feeling depressed. All the "chemical imbalance" talk is to avoid having to think about this, and instead reduces the problem in the same way a heroin addict does. The main complexity in fixing it is that the subject often doesn't know their life is shit and just keeps trying to do that life better, or that they fear leaving that life will make things worse. My non-psychologist tip for anyone suffering from severe depression like I was is simple: you have to make a very big, easy change to your life. Big means not tweaking this or that, but completely changing everything. What's the most extreme change you could make, in your mind? Is it go and be a monk in Nepal for a couple of years? Then do that. Easy means it can't be a struggle - if you're depressed you don't have the energy to do that.
- jordanb 2y agoI am beginning to think that a huge part of medicalizing psycological probelms is really about getting people to accept a life that has been imposed on them that leaves them profoundly unhappy, hopeless and unfulfilled. A stark example: my employer has decided to outsource all of technology and as many other functions as possible to India. We have all been informed that most of us will be unemployed by the end of the year. They are also following up in all corporate communications about how "transitions can be hard" and "mental health is important" offering online counseling and the like. I think this is partly their way of cleansing their own hands "we know some very bad outcomes for some people are going to result from this, but how can it be our fault when we offered them resources to help with their mental health?" The other part is individualizing the problem: "yes losing your job can be a challenge but it's really about what's between your own two ears." Finally, mental health is an industry, arguably one that is providing services principally to other businesses ("you can do what ever you want to your workforce and we will fix it in their heads"). By the way I remember some of those drug addiction studies that showed lab rats choosing heroin over food until they starve being criticized because the parameters of being a lab rat trapped in a glass box under harsh lights may have something to do with the rat's state of mind.
- 11101010001100 2y agoMaybe we will understand when an AI becomes depressed.
- efilife 2y agoReality.
- sixo 2y agoNothing? Something happens in the brain (and body) which is depression, at a lower level of abstraction. The world outside of the brain "causes" depression. Sometimes things inside the brain or body (ideas, beliefs, emotions) cause the certain things to happen in the outside world (actions or inaction). Sometimes these form a cycle: undesired life circumstances cause the brain to become depressive, which causes inaction, which prevents the circumstances from changing. Sometimes nature/nurture/nutrition play a part in those internal ideas/beliefs/emotions, causing certain people to tend to get in depressive states more than others. I'm certain 95% of depressions is this, but don't bother coming after me for the last 5%, keep it to yourself.