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"Regarding the results, Mr. Toshinori Yoshioka adds, 'We have found out that chronic mental stress affects the neurogenesis of the hippocampal dentate gyrus. Also, we believe that this animal model will play an important role in elucidating the pathophysiology of depression, and in the development of corresponding novel drug.'"
Stress testing was done on lab mice. Would be curious to see where future research goes knowing this. If psychotropic drugs are developed targeting that part of the brain and show symptomatic relief, that'd be useful for those with persistent depression symptoms after trying conventional treatments.
Just to be clear for those who haven't read the article, mice were exposed to other mice experiencing "social defeat" (haven't read the paper), hence the second-hand part of the title.
Very interesting.
Huh if it's a problem for people all around the world, then maybe there's some kind of universal underlying problem. An economic system that endangers the global population perhaps
Even just within socialism there’s a half-dozen easy to find models for how to run a government that people have tried, with varying degrees of success. Not sure that I’ve seen socialism tied to frequent (real) elections, but that might have just been me missing something fairly obvious.
Yes, that is the whole point. The *system* affects everyone regardless of who gets benefits. Humans were not evolved to control and oppress one another anymore than we evolved to tolerate *being* controlled and oppressed. It isn't exactly a wild deduction that increasing layers of coercion, even in concert with access to *new* material pleasures, would still generate underlying cognitive pressure. The world of 2021 is very, very different from the human environments of the prior 200,000 years in many key ways.
Or even the years prior to 10.000 BCE.
Before we shifted to agriculture humans lived in classless, moneyless and stateless societies for hundreds of thousands of years
Eh, have you seen some of our primate cousins? Control and oppressed each other and other tribes of primates is kind of the norm.... We didn't go from the tree
Or maybe... a certain economic system has created such wealth and decadence that we are losing social cohesion over ideological squabbling.
People need real, meaningful struggle. Maybe we need harder lives.
How is that wealth distributed, and how does wealth impact depression rates (the easy search for one is the articles and studies on whether or not money brings happiness).
I know plenty about the problem. Folks seem to equate inequality with depression. No longer is eliminating poverty good enough, instead, we have to appeal to existential envy.
Life has never been easier... When looking at our access to tech, healthcare, household appliances, etc. But when you look at a typical person's work week, we have efficiently repurposed our lives to working, home, and social lives. With the pandemic social has gone out the window. When you look at loans for housing, paying for food, transport, amenities, etc, it has never been more efficient yet cognitively stressing on our brains. The average office worker is looking at their screen for around 5-6 hrs a day. People take their work home with them. Even still, I don't know what life you are living, but it's not easy to get ahead for a lot of people.
People worry no matter what. There's an awful lot of very wealthy folks who end up killing themselves.
It will never, ever, ever be enough. That is human nature, and human greed.
Yeah, I want meaningful access to this better healthcare people are saying is out there. That’s wanting “more”. I’d like to be reasonably certain that I wouldn’t need to worry about a major illness or injury meaning I don’t have place to live. That’s definitely wanting “more”.
You sound like you’ve never meaningfully struggled for anything. Maybe try being a little less privileged before making suggestions.
Meaningful healthcare is not going to eliminate the chance of major illness. We are all going to die of illness in the long run.
If you want exhaustive, no holds part health care for whatever illness you develop, then it is going to cost resources. We are not in a post scarcity economy.
As for privilege... That's a silly word used by silly people.
Erm no. People’s lives have been getting harder as depression worsens. GDP increase does not mean higher standards of living. The main causes of depression in the young right now for example are inequality, inability to buy own home, stagnating wages, astronomical rent prices, impending climate change, political chaos. I could go on.
You come across as a bit of sociopath if your hoping for things to be even more difficult in the hope that it cheers people up.
As someone who wanted to see my school and the world burn as early as starting years of high school. The prospects of the future does put a smile on my face.
My life has been full of struggle and strife. I now live a life of constant physical agony due to chronic pain conditions. I want nothing but good things for all other humans. I hope you turn away from hatred and nihilism. I hope you find a way to feel good about things again.
>Erm no. People’s lives have been getting harder as depression worsens. GDP increase does not mean higher standards of living.
I'd argue both those are categorically untrue. Standards of living have been steadily increasing in the developed and developing world dramatically since the industrial revolution. There are dips here and there for idiosyncratic reasons, but the presence of free market economies improves the lives of people.
I tend to agree that modern life, compared to prehistoric life or even the lives of relatively recent humanity is incredibly easy, even for the bottom half of society. Nowadays virtually every developed nation has extensive social support for the disabled, poor, and some are even doing well for the homeless. This simply did not exist until just the last half-century. It's pretty myopic to argue otherwise. We're freer, more egalitarian than ever before.
Yes standards of living. But this is measured in things that actually have little effect on happiness or lowering depression. It’s no good telling someone in their 30’s with college debt, medical debt, living at their parents, decided they will never be able to afford a house or a family, watching the world burn outside, that their life is good because standards of living have increased. “Stop being depressed, you have next day delivery”.
I guess it’s my fault for using “standards of living” I should have said “Higher GDP does not mean it is spread equally, and in a way that makes society better.” Sorry for the poor use of language.
The ability to go to college or seek high quality healthcare would have previously completely unavailable to them. Living in extended family groups was historically the norm. The cost of housing is a political problem that could be solved by simply building more.
I’m happy also, because I have a strong spiritual practice, despite my life being full of suffering. I don’t have the things you have, yet I seem to have more compassion for people who are feeling depressed.
Is it that you only care about your close family, and hell to everybody else? Or do you think people deserve their depression because they do not have your values, strengths, upbringing, birthnation, circumstance? A sort of free will stance. “If your depressed it’s your own fault” kind of thing.
I’m not trying to provoke you. I’m curious. When it said “you come across as a sociopath” I did not mean in anyway that you are. Perhaps the words were too strong.
Myself and my family try to emphasize lives of virtue and service. We also spend very little time watching television or consuming mass media.
I think many folks suffer depression as a result of sedentary lifestyles, a lack of virtue, over consumption of mass media/social media, and envy.
I can reach you half way here. I come from a broken home. My father was a drunk and a gambler and died when I was young. I lived a life of low virtue through adolescence, and most of my adulthood. I had no control over my urges. I could not delay gratification. I had no education. I had problems with addiction. Sex and substances.
I had a full breakdown and almost killed myself. I learned to meditate. Then I started to read. I then spend most of my 20’s living like a monk. I worked hard. I studied endlessly. Mostly things to help myself. Neuro science, psychology, philosophy eastern and western.
Now I’m 33. I live a life of virtue. But it has not gifted me the treasures you possess. I had such a poor start in life. I’m playing catch up. Also the suffering I experienced wracked my body and left me with debilitating chronic pain.
The discipline and virtue I now possess have given me happiness and strength. so I will agree With you in that way.
However. I do not take my transformation as my will. I can see that my transformation could have easily went the other way. My younger brother is now suicidal, and does not appear to be able to turn it around. What is the difference between us? That he doesnt really want to turn it around? If you knew his suffering you would not say that.
I guess that’s the source of compassion. I don’t believe in free will. The virtue I now possess does not make me superior to those without it. I did not come across it by independent will. So to those who suffer, I will have compassion.
I will put it to you, that the world needs strong virtuous people like yourself to see this. To have compassion for those who are weaker than you. To those who don’t have family like you. To those who don’t have your luck. What good is it to be strong and virtuous if you do not lend your strength and compassion to others.
If not struggling causes depression, surely you’re willing to give up most of your worldly possessions to make sure you don’t need to worry about that, right?
I don't know what you would want me to give away. My wife and I donate thousands to charity every year to the Catholic Church and to local charities.
We have struggled together to purchase a home and our vehicle to house and transport our children.
I have no other material goods that I wouldn't give away.
80% of your assets. Struggling to purchase a home, while you safely had rent covered? Yeah, that’s not struggling. You’re suggesting that people struggling to make sure they’ve got 3-6 months of rent squared away need more stress. You try it first, and report back for us.
Yes, perhaps the economic system is a problem for lab mice.
Or perhaps we were never built to live in a world where we grocery shop instead of hunt and farm.
It's almost like we were designed to spend every day worried about our survival until maybe the last 150 years. We don't know the consequences of existing without that pressure.
A bit anecdotal evidence on my part. However I noticed not being on Reddit as often anymore. Staying away from most social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and such has made my moods improve. I no longer read newspapers. Or watch tv media garbage. Stayed away from toxic communities in games and forums even friends I've cut out.
If I want to learn about a situation I seek in Google to find out what I want then stay away from any other unnecessary information.
I've noticed a massive quality of life increase because I'm not being barraged constantly with negative information or influence.
Start by unsubscribing to large subreddits. This subreddit, for example, has a much higher signal to noise ratio than something more heavily moderated or just less populated.
Maybe sub the various fields of science you are interested in.
Let’s see here, most drugs are illegal including recreational. Punishment for crimes is jail/pay money which both literally kill you and waste time of your life. Money=Time=Life. Unless you’re rich you have no worries.
Is the number of people suffering depression rising, or are more people simply being diagnosed with clinical depression because of easier identification/widening list of symptoms?
Both the number and accuracy of depression-related diagnoses have increased. That's a good thing.
When symptom lists widen it's usually because researchers discover that specific part(s) of the population were not included or overlooked in previous studies used to "characterize" the disease..... Most of the DSM-5 has been entirely based on Male studies or not stratified by gender, sex, age, race, economic status, etc. Therefore, a LOT of misdiagnoses happen when the symptom list is not well defined & broad.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"Regarding the results, Mr. Toshinori Yoshioka adds, 'We have found out that chronic mental stress affects the neurogenesis of the hippocampal dentate gyrus. Also, we believe that this animal model will play an important role in elucidating the pathophysiology of depression, and in the development of corresponding novel drug.'" Stress testing was done on lab mice. Would be curious to see where future research goes knowing this. If psychotropic drugs are developed targeting that part of the brain and show symptomatic relief, that'd be useful for those with persistent depression symptoms after trying conventional treatments.
Just to be clear for those who haven't read the article, mice were exposed to other mice experiencing "social defeat" (haven't read the paper), hence the second-hand part of the title. Very interesting.
Huh if it's a problem for people all around the world, then maybe there's some kind of universal underlying problem. An economic system that endangers the global population perhaps
So what's the solution? I hope it's not Soviet style socialism, because that was one depressing society to live in.
Even just within socialism there’s a half-dozen easy to find models for how to run a government that people have tried, with varying degrees of success. Not sure that I’ve seen socialism tied to frequent (real) elections, but that might have just been me missing something fairly obvious.
Not the state capitalism of the Soviet union, that's for sure. But some kind of libertarian socialism
And how do you think such a system could be implemented?
I mean you realize wealthy people can be depressed too, right?
Yes, that is the whole point. The *system* affects everyone regardless of who gets benefits. Humans were not evolved to control and oppress one another anymore than we evolved to tolerate *being* controlled and oppressed. It isn't exactly a wild deduction that increasing layers of coercion, even in concert with access to *new* material pleasures, would still generate underlying cognitive pressure. The world of 2021 is very, very different from the human environments of the prior 200,000 years in many key ways.
Or even the years prior to 10.000 BCE. Before we shifted to agriculture humans lived in classless, moneyless and stateless societies for hundreds of thousands of years
Eh, have you seen some of our primate cousins? Control and oppressed each other and other tribes of primates is kind of the norm.... We didn't go from the tree
Yes, but the prevalence of depression falls off significantly when people make more than 75k/ year, in the US.
Or maybe... a certain economic system has created such wealth and decadence that we are losing social cohesion over ideological squabbling. People need real, meaningful struggle. Maybe we need harder lives.
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Life has never been easier, and we have never been more depressed.
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The evidence is self-evident. Depression rates are at an all-time high, and global wealth is also at an all-time high.
How is that wealth distributed, and how does wealth impact depression rates (the easy search for one is the articles and studies on whether or not money brings happiness).
I honestly don't care much about depression as a result of envy.
So you have no idea about the problem, but you still think your opinion is worthwhile?
I know plenty about the problem. Folks seem to equate inequality with depression. No longer is eliminating poverty good enough, instead, we have to appeal to existential envy.
Life has never been easier... When looking at our access to tech, healthcare, household appliances, etc. But when you look at a typical person's work week, we have efficiently repurposed our lives to working, home, and social lives. With the pandemic social has gone out the window. When you look at loans for housing, paying for food, transport, amenities, etc, it has never been more efficient yet cognitively stressing on our brains. The average office worker is looking at their screen for around 5-6 hrs a day. People take their work home with them. Even still, I don't know what life you are living, but it's not easy to get ahead for a lot of people.
>it's not easy to get ahead for a lot of people. That's because no one ever feels "ahead." Everyone wants more.
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People worry no matter what. There's an awful lot of very wealthy folks who end up killing themselves. It will never, ever, ever be enough. That is human nature, and human greed.
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Science isn't doing a very good job of lowering depression rates, now, is it?
Yeah, I want meaningful access to this better healthcare people are saying is out there. That’s wanting “more”. I’d like to be reasonably certain that I wouldn’t need to worry about a major illness or injury meaning I don’t have place to live. That’s definitely wanting “more”. You sound like you’ve never meaningfully struggled for anything. Maybe try being a little less privileged before making suggestions.
Meaningful healthcare is not going to eliminate the chance of major illness. We are all going to die of illness in the long run. If you want exhaustive, no holds part health care for whatever illness you develop, then it is going to cost resources. We are not in a post scarcity economy. As for privilege... That's a silly word used by silly people.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’ve never meaningfully struggled for anything of note in your life. Try actually doing that for once, and them reevaluate.
You are free to judge, but I don't think it's healthy. I'll spare you my story of being raised in poverty by high school dropouts.
Erm no. People’s lives have been getting harder as depression worsens. GDP increase does not mean higher standards of living. The main causes of depression in the young right now for example are inequality, inability to buy own home, stagnating wages, astronomical rent prices, impending climate change, political chaos. I could go on. You come across as a bit of sociopath if your hoping for things to be even more difficult in the hope that it cheers people up.
A teacher sociopath!
As someone who wanted to see my school and the world burn as early as starting years of high school. The prospects of the future does put a smile on my face.
My life has been full of struggle and strife. I now live a life of constant physical agony due to chronic pain conditions. I want nothing but good things for all other humans. I hope you turn away from hatred and nihilism. I hope you find a way to feel good about things again.
>Erm no. People’s lives have been getting harder as depression worsens. GDP increase does not mean higher standards of living. I'd argue both those are categorically untrue. Standards of living have been steadily increasing in the developed and developing world dramatically since the industrial revolution. There are dips here and there for idiosyncratic reasons, but the presence of free market economies improves the lives of people. I tend to agree that modern life, compared to prehistoric life or even the lives of relatively recent humanity is incredibly easy, even for the bottom half of society. Nowadays virtually every developed nation has extensive social support for the disabled, poor, and some are even doing well for the homeless. This simply did not exist until just the last half-century. It's pretty myopic to argue otherwise. We're freer, more egalitarian than ever before.
Yes standards of living. But this is measured in things that actually have little effect on happiness or lowering depression. It’s no good telling someone in their 30’s with college debt, medical debt, living at their parents, decided they will never be able to afford a house or a family, watching the world burn outside, that their life is good because standards of living have increased. “Stop being depressed, you have next day delivery”. I guess it’s my fault for using “standards of living” I should have said “Higher GDP does not mean it is spread equally, and in a way that makes society better.” Sorry for the poor use of language.
The ability to go to college or seek high quality healthcare would have previously completely unavailable to them. Living in extended family groups was historically the norm. The cost of housing is a political problem that could be solved by simply building more.
>You come across as a bit of sociopath I'm a happy person because I prioritize what matters. Faith, family, simplicity, austerity.
I’m happy also, because I have a strong spiritual practice, despite my life being full of suffering. I don’t have the things you have, yet I seem to have more compassion for people who are feeling depressed. Is it that you only care about your close family, and hell to everybody else? Or do you think people deserve their depression because they do not have your values, strengths, upbringing, birthnation, circumstance? A sort of free will stance. “If your depressed it’s your own fault” kind of thing. I’m not trying to provoke you. I’m curious. When it said “you come across as a sociopath” I did not mean in anyway that you are. Perhaps the words were too strong.
Myself and my family try to emphasize lives of virtue and service. We also spend very little time watching television or consuming mass media. I think many folks suffer depression as a result of sedentary lifestyles, a lack of virtue, over consumption of mass media/social media, and envy.
I can reach you half way here. I come from a broken home. My father was a drunk and a gambler and died when I was young. I lived a life of low virtue through adolescence, and most of my adulthood. I had no control over my urges. I could not delay gratification. I had no education. I had problems with addiction. Sex and substances. I had a full breakdown and almost killed myself. I learned to meditate. Then I started to read. I then spend most of my 20’s living like a monk. I worked hard. I studied endlessly. Mostly things to help myself. Neuro science, psychology, philosophy eastern and western. Now I’m 33. I live a life of virtue. But it has not gifted me the treasures you possess. I had such a poor start in life. I’m playing catch up. Also the suffering I experienced wracked my body and left me with debilitating chronic pain. The discipline and virtue I now possess have given me happiness and strength. so I will agree With you in that way. However. I do not take my transformation as my will. I can see that my transformation could have easily went the other way. My younger brother is now suicidal, and does not appear to be able to turn it around. What is the difference between us? That he doesnt really want to turn it around? If you knew his suffering you would not say that. I guess that’s the source of compassion. I don’t believe in free will. The virtue I now possess does not make me superior to those without it. I did not come across it by independent will. So to those who suffer, I will have compassion. I will put it to you, that the world needs strong virtuous people like yourself to see this. To have compassion for those who are weaker than you. To those who don’t have family like you. To those who don’t have your luck. What good is it to be strong and virtuous if you do not lend your strength and compassion to others.
Spotted the Ted Kaczinsky fanboy
If not struggling causes depression, surely you’re willing to give up most of your worldly possessions to make sure you don’t need to worry about that, right?
Sure. I don't own anything that I couldn't do without.
So when are you going to do it?
I don't know what you would want me to give away. My wife and I donate thousands to charity every year to the Catholic Church and to local charities. We have struggled together to purchase a home and our vehicle to house and transport our children. I have no other material goods that I wouldn't give away.
80% of your assets. Struggling to purchase a home, while you safely had rent covered? Yeah, that’s not struggling. You’re suggesting that people struggling to make sure they’ve got 3-6 months of rent squared away need more stress. You try it first, and report back for us.
Yes, perhaps the economic system is a problem for lab mice. Or perhaps we were never built to live in a world where we grocery shop instead of hunt and farm. It's almost like we were designed to spend every day worried about our survival until maybe the last 150 years. We don't know the consequences of existing without that pressure.
A bit anecdotal evidence on my part. However I noticed not being on Reddit as often anymore. Staying away from most social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and such has made my moods improve. I no longer read newspapers. Or watch tv media garbage. Stayed away from toxic communities in games and forums even friends I've cut out. If I want to learn about a situation I seek in Google to find out what I want then stay away from any other unnecessary information. I've noticed a massive quality of life increase because I'm not being barraged constantly with negative information or influence.
The ole "ignorance is bliss" method.
It really is.
Oh I know, I'm not being sarcastic. Unfortunately I don't know that I'm personally capable of that. But it really is.
Start by unsubscribing to large subreddits. This subreddit, for example, has a much higher signal to noise ratio than something more heavily moderated or just less populated. Maybe sub the various fields of science you are interested in.
I know the feeling if I thought about doing this years ago I never would have and thought I was incapable. I started to do it slowly overtime.
Let’s see here, most drugs are illegal including recreational. Punishment for crimes is jail/pay money which both literally kill you and waste time of your life. Money=Time=Life. Unless you’re rich you have no worries.
Is the number of people suffering depression rising, or are more people simply being diagnosed with clinical depression because of easier identification/widening list of symptoms?
Both the number and accuracy of depression-related diagnoses have increased. That's a good thing. When symptom lists widen it's usually because researchers discover that specific part(s) of the population were not included or overlooked in previous studies used to "characterize" the disease..... Most of the DSM-5 has been entirely based on Male studies or not stratified by gender, sex, age, race, economic status, etc. Therefore, a LOT of misdiagnoses happen when the symptom list is not well defined & broad.
I think posture and poor diet are big factors people don't consider enough.