Found: a brain-wiring pattern linked to depression
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The network of brain cells called the salience network (black) is bigger in people with depression (middle and right columns) than in those without (left column). Credit: C. J. Lynch et al./Nature
The symptoms of depression might come and go, but new evidence suggests that the pattern of brain wiring behind it remains the same for life. The largest imaging study1 of its kind has found that a certain brain network involved in directing attention to stimuli is nearly twice as big in people with depression as it is in the rest of the population — and that it remains that way when a person no longer feels depressed.
The results are a step towards a biological marker for depression, which is at present diagnosed mainly using questionnaires. But the authors say their finding should be validated in more populations before it is used clinically.. The study was published today in Nature.
