Brain research sheds light on the molecular mechanisms of depression:
Researchers of the national Turku PET Centre have shown that the opioid system in the brain is connected to mood changes associated with depression and anxiety.
Depression and anxiety are typically associated with lowered mood and decreased experience of pleasure. Opioids regulate the feelings of pain and pleasure in the brain. The new study conducted in Turku shows that the symptoms associated with depression and anxiety are connected to changes in the brain's opioid system already in healthy individuals.
- We found that the more depressive and anxious symptoms the subjects had, the less opioid receptors there were in their brain.
[...] These results show that the mood changes indicating depression can be detected in the brain already early on.
Journal Reference:
Lauri Nummenmaa, Tomi Karjalainen, Janne Isojärvi, et al. Lowered endogenous mu-opioid receptor availability in subclinical depression and anxiety, Neuropsychopharmacology (DOI: 10.1038/s41386-020-0725-9)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:51PM (1 child)
Depression is associated with decreased experience of pleasure? Well duh. Sorry, no Nobel prize for you today Mustafa.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:56PM
Turku PET Center is in Finland, which by itself explains the symptoms of depression.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:53PM (1 child)
LIfe sucks. So you are depressed.
How about that?! Eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @02:50AM
My theory is we evolved to be optimistic and of happy Disposition. Why else should you find beauty in a sunset. And loneliness- evolved To be unpleasant ; those who liked being alone had a higher chance of being saber tooth food.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:58PM (1 child)
Increase the dose and be done with it?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday June 19 2020, @01:45PM
Seems a fair chance that wouldn't work so well - fewer receptors means slower processing of neurotransmitters. A larger dose might just have the same effect over a longer period, if the opioid receptors are already fully stimulated at the lower dose.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:23AM (3 children)
That might explain why they're always complaining about global warming and having to live in their parent's basement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @01:02AM
#MillennialLivesMatter... join the March for Millennial Respect, starting at the Starbucks near your mother's basement at noon on Saturday.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday June 19 2020, @02:08AM (1 child)
Or, like Greta Thunberg realized, carelessness towards the environment could get most or even all of us killed. Generation Z has reason to be depressed.
Disasters do happen. Civilizations have fallen. It can happen because people didn't know the dangers, but too often it's when everyone gets reckless and ignores the warnings. Drink the Kool-aid, believe in indestructibility, even do stuff to hasten Doom. If it's impossible to do lasting harm, why not?
Then, if you survive the collapse, spend the rest of your life in misery, on the roughest camping and hunting trip ever that will never end and which grows harder and harder as your tools break one by one from endless, hard usage, your irreplaceable supplies dwindle, and starvation looms because living off the land is nigh impossible because it's f*cked. And the whole time realize that the world wasn't unsinkable after all, and that you didn't appreciate just how good you had it before you helped ruin everything. Such thoughts might drive you into suicidal depression, and you might even give up and kill yourself, because you really are a special snowflake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @02:46AM
Are you saying external factors such as the water temp, can reduce opioid receptors in mah brain, better get some mor in there, increased dosage gonna grow mor receptors bru+
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kitsune008 on Friday June 19 2020, @02:43AM
So I just need higher purity heroin. Got it.
Gahh! What a fucked up reality we are presented with nowadays.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @04:04AM (2 children)
I've been depressed with anxiety my entire adult life and for about 8 years I was heavily using opioids, mostly morphine. Let me tell you I've been on many antidepressants and anxiolytics and nothing beats morphine. It eliminated my depression AND anxiety, made me more sociable, and increased my drive to accomplish tasks. If you don't overdo the dosages it doesn't cause you to feel foggy or out of it, just clean and happy. Combined with modafinil it made me feel unstoppable levels of energy and drive. Of course that was all for the first year or so, then addiction set it and it began to cause far more pain than it cured. For acute physical and mental pain, Morphine truly is the gold standard.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday June 19 2020, @07:30AM
Or follow* Marx, and take to religion: "Religion is the opium of the people." [wikipedia.org].
*In this context, I do not mean to imply Marx was in favour of religion. Quite the opposite: but his analysis was that religion acted much like an opiate, providing (addictive) temporary relief from the human condition.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday June 20 2020, @02:13AM
Not for you, but for innocent folks who may be reading. Here is a medically detailed account of the experience by a great master and a doctor.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4531917-morphine [goodreads.com]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Touché) by acid andy on Friday June 19 2020, @11:33AM
If you feel too much pleasure and satisfaction, you might get distracted and stop worrying that you need to work at least 90 hours a week to meet your psychotic boss's unattainable expectations and avoid destitution. It seems to me that other people's fear, stress and desperation are what makes the world go round for the elites. Pleasure's not allowed.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.