Category: Tech

[ ♪INTRO ] Chances are that you or someone you care about has experienced depression.
00:00:06
It’s one of the most common mental health problems in the US.
00:00:10
Around 16% of American adults will suffer from depression at some point in their life. Given how much we talk about and treat depression, it might seem like we’ve got it figured out, from a scientific perspective.
00:00:21
But we do not understand as much about it as you might think.
00:00:25
Especially what’s actually going on in your brain when you’re depressed.
00:00:29
Doctors have defined depression, or at least agreed on a set of criteria to diagnose it. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, also known as the DSM, is the handbook healthcare professionals use to diagnose mental disorders.
00:00:43
And the latest edition of the DSM lays out two key symptoms of depression. The first is feeling sad or depressed.
00:00:50
But many depression sufferers experience this more as a lack of feeling, or numbness, rather than sadness. The second is a loss of interest or pleasure in activities that are normally enjoyable.
00:01:01
You have to have at least one of these key symptoms, as well as 3-4 additional symptoms consistently, to be diagnosed with depression.
00:01:09
Additional symptoms can include unpleasant things like: feeling worthless, difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much, difficulty concentrating and making decisions, or suicidal thoughts. Not all of your symptoms need to be severe, but as a group they can make it harder for you to function at work or school, in your relationships, or just in life.
00:01:28
We know that depression isn’t simply a bad mood that you can snap out of — something is not functioning correctly in your brain. The question is what? One widespread impression among the public is that depression is caused by having too little serotonin. But that’s an oversimplification at best.
00:01:47
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter — a chemical that neurons use to signal each other.
00:01:51
When a neuron signals its neighbor, it releases a neurotransmitter, like serotonin, into the synapse — the space between itself and its neighbor.
00:02:00
The serotonin molecules diffuse across the synapse and bind to their receptors on the neighboring neuron, transmitting the signal.
00:02:07
Then the signalling neuron reabsorbs — or re-uptakes — its serotonin.
00:02:12
Some of the most commonly used medications for depression are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.
00:02:19
SSRIs reduce the reuptake of serotonin, which increases the amount of serotonin hanging around synapses. But how these medications work and sometimes don’t work show that a lack of serotonin isn’t the only thing happening in the depressive brain.
00:02:36
If that were true, you’d expect that SSRI medications to work pretty quickly, and to work for everyone with depression — but they don’t.
00:02:43
Even though serotonin concentrations may go up right away when you take an SSRI, it can still take weeks for people to start feeling better.
00:02:51
That is, if they even start feeling better at all. SSRIs simply don’t work for all patients.
00:02:57
Research has identified a few other potential factors that could help us better treat depression. First off, serotonin isn’t the only neurotransmitter that plays a role.
00:03:07
Research has shown that at least 5 other neurotransmitters could be involved, all of which serve many different functions in the brain and elsewhere in the body — it’s complicated! And the structure of our brains matters too — not just the chemicals inside them.
00:03:21
Certain regions of the brain, and the connections between them, have been shown to be altered in depression. The amygdala, which helps us process emotions, and the hippocampus, which has a role in memory storage, are among the brain regions that undergo structural changes in some patients with depression. Changes like having a different size compared to people without depression, though we’re not sure what that means exactly yet.
00:03:45
And rather than merely changing the levels of certain neurotransmitters, studies have shown that antidepressants can actually help new neurons grow in certain parts of the brain. Which may be one reason why SSRI medications typically take so long to work.
00:04:00
Your brain could be growing new neurons, not just responding to a short-term change in chemical messengers. There’s likely a genetic component to depression as well.
00:04:10
There is some evidence that depression can run in families, though the association isn’t particularly strong.
00:04:15
A 2018 genome-wide study sampled a huge pool of genes in people with and without depression. It found 44 variants that seem to be associated with depression.
00:04:26
These so-called “genes of interest” included genes previously shown to have a role in the growth of neurons — as well as some surprises, like genes previously shown to be involved in immune system function.
00:04:37
But it’s unlikely that a particular gene or genes cause depression on their own. More likely, it could be the result of how your personal set of genes interacts with your environment and your experiences.
00:04:50
Some studies have found that variants in certain genes can interact with major stressful events in childhood to affect the rate of depression in adults.
00:04:57
But not all studies find such strong links between our genes and our environment. It’s still an active area of study.
00:05:04
So depression is hard to figure out.
00:05:06
There are so many factors involved, and they all interact with each other — from genetics and environment, to the chemistry and structure of the brain.
00:05:14
The good news is that even though we don’t entirely understand how depression works, we still have ways to treat it that help lots of people.
00:05:21
You don’t have to know exactly how an existing medication or treatment works to know that it does work — that patients may respond to it and feel better.
00:05:30
Meanwhile, scientists are still working to tease out the many, intertwined causes of depression to develop new treatments. So there’s hope on the horizon. Even when you can’t see it.
00:05:40
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych, which was supported by our community of patrons. To learn more, check out patreon.com/scishow.
00:05:48
[ ♪OUTRO ]

♪♪♪ – The current standard of care for the treatment of depression is based on what we call the monoamine deficiency hypothesis. Essentially presuming that one of three neurotransmitters in the brain is deficient or underactive.
00:00:24
– Neurotransmitters can be thought of as the chemical messengers within the brain. It’s what helps one cell in the brain communicate with another to pass that message along.
00:00:32
– But the reality is there are more than a hundred neurotransmitters in the brain and billions of connections between neurons.
00:00:39
So we know that that’s a limited hypothesis. – For decades, we thought that the primary pathology, the primary cause of depression was some abnormality in these neuro-transmitters, specifically serotonin or norepinephrine.
00:00:58
– However, norepinephrine and serotonin did not seem to be able to account for the symptoms of depression in people who had major depression.
00:01:08
Instead, the chemical messengers between the nerve cells in the higher centers of the brain involved in regulating mood and emotion, which include glutamate and GABA, were possibilities as alternative causes for the symptoms of depression. – We know that these two, which are the most ubiquitous and abundant neurotransmitters in the brain, actually regulate how the brain is changing over time and adapting. – When you are exposed to severe and chronic stress like people experience when they have depression, you lose some of this connections between the nerve cells and the communication in these circuits becomes inefficient and noisy.
00:01:56
Because of the noisy communication in the circuits involved in regulating mood and emotion, we think that the loss of these synaptic connections contributes to the biology of depression.
00:02:19
– It’s critical to understand the neurobiology of depression and how the brain plays a role in that for two main reasons. One, it helps us understand how the disease develops and progresses and we can start to target treatments based on that. – There are clear differences between a healthy brain and a depressed brain. And the exciting thing is when you treat that depression effectively, the brain goes back to looking like a healthy brain.
00:02:47
– We recognize that the treatment for depression is a longterm process because for many people depression is a longterm disorder.
00:02:56
So we need new treatments.
00:02:58
We’ve needed new ways to approach depression for people that haven’t responded well to their prior treatments.
00:03:05
– We are in a new era of psychiatry. This is a paradigm shift away from a model of monoaminergic deficiency to a fuller understanding of the brain as a complex neurochemical organ.

00:00:01
– [Jessica] We all wish we were better at remembering something, but many of us use the excuse that– – My brain can only hold so much information. – [Jessica] Or.
00:00:09
– I’m just really bad at remembering names.
00:00:11
– Turns out there’s no such thing as a terrible memory, only an untrained one.
00:00:16
(upbeat music) For a national poll, 800 Americans were asked if they had forgotten one of these things in the last week.
00:00:27
Results showed that forgetting someone’s name was one of the most common memory lapses. – [Man] The biggest reason why we’re bad at remembering names is because we often don’t hear the name. – [Jessica] That is Kevin Horsley.
00:00:38
He is one of the few memory champions in the world to complete the Mt. Everest of memory challenges which involves memorizing 10,000 digits of Pi. – [Kevin] You’ve had this experience before.
00:00:49
You meet someone, and they say their name is John. You don’t hear the name, and just move on. And you come back like, “What was his name again?” Because you actually didn’t hear it in the first place. – [Jessica] 90% of the information we receive is visual, so we store more images in our memory than sounds which makes it harder to recognize and remember names when we first hear them.
00:01:10
– [Kevin] The first thing you have to do is concentrate and make a point of hearing the name, then, you have 20 seconds to give that name some kind of meaning to make it stick. – [Jessica] The best trick to give meaning to a name is to transform it into a silly picture. For example, when you hear the name Horsley, you can picture a horse and Bruce Lee.
00:01:33
For the name Orwig, maybe picture an oar wearing a wig. The more ridiculous looking the image the better. – [Kevin] It sticks in your mind because we don’t remember things that are logical.
00:01:45
We remember things that are illogical. So, what you do is you stick it in your memory in an illogical way, and afterwards you can think about it logically.
00:01:56
– Once you can creatively picture any new information, you’re ready for the next trick.
00:02:01
Horsley calls it by a few names: the Body Method, the Car Method, and the Journey.
00:02:06
– [Kevin] They all work on the same principle that they are all things that are in your long-term memory. You know exactly what your body looks like.
00:02:14
You know exactly what your car looks like. You don’t have to think about it.
00:02:18
– The trick is to imprint new information onto old knowledge.
00:02:22
And what you’re really doing here is creating new synaptic connections in your brain, which makes it easier to remember new information, and then convert into long-term memory.
00:02:31
For example, let’s trying learning all of the films that won the Oscars for Best Picture in the 90s using our body. Let’s start with our feet.
00:02:39
So, in 1990 the film that won Best Picture for that year was Dances with Wolves.
00:02:43
You can picture yourself wearing wolf-shaped slippers and dancing in them.
00:02:48
(upbeat music) Okay, in ’91, Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture, so your knees are knocking together in fear making a lot of noise, so you grab a lamb-shaped pillow to silence them. Moving up your body to your waist.
00:03:04
In ’92, Unforgiven won Best Picture.
00:03:06
So, picture a belt that’s really tight wrapped around your waist.
00:03:10
It’s really uncomfortable and unforgiving. And as you move down the list, you move up your body. Once you have the hang of it, you can use other settings to store, not just lists, but libraries of knowledge. Take a mental journey through your room, or home, to learn all 197 capitals of the world, for example.
00:03:29
– [Kevin] The journey is what all memory champions are using. This method may seem silly, but what it does is it impacts your memory.
00:03:37
So, it’s going to be easier for you to repeat it, then, it’s going to be easier for you to use it, and then, you won’t be thinking about these silly images anymore. – [Jessica] Like anything in life, improving your memory takes practice, but the more you learn, the more connections you can build making it easier to learn even more.
00:03:55
So, the possibilities are endless. Take Horsley, for example, as a child he had issues with dyslexia. By the time he graduated high school, he was reading at a speed of about a five-year-old. Shortly after graduation, however, he got interested in memory. Today, he reads one book a day, speaks three languages fluently, and has earned the coveted title of International Grandmaster of Memory. – [Kevin] For me, it’s been a journey.
00:04:22
I’ve been studying this for almost 30 years, and everyday I’m still learning something new when it comes to memory.
00:04:29
(soft music)

Hello friends.
00:00:01
Few days ago, we made a video on five habits that damage the brain. And that video got an amazing response.
00:00:07
But many of our viewers wanted to know about five habits that boosts our brain power. So here it is today.
00:00:13
In this video, we are going to give you five habits that enhance brain power. So let’s start tip number one, follow Mediterranean diet.
00:00:21
A traditional Mediterranean diet consists of loads of fresh fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish, healthy fats like olive oil, Etc. It has been proven that it improves your brain health.
00:00:34
So do include a Mediterranean diet in your diet plan. Tip, number two, learn an instrument.
00:00:40
It has been proven that learning to play a musical instrument changes brain waves with Boost listening and hearing skills over a short period of time.
00:00:50
Basically playing an instrument turns on every single area of the brain. Simultaneously.
00:00:56
This can result in Long positive changes in your brain tip number three play games according to research, complex brain teasers, which include readjusting strategies and complex planning, helps in increasing memory playing games like chess, Sudoku, crossword puzzles will lead to structural changes because of which your brain gets sharpened. Tip number four, eat dark chocolate.
00:01:20
Yes, you heard it right? Consuming dark chocolates can make you smarter according to research consuming flavanol. Cocoa 45 days improves blood flow to the brain.
00:01:30
Also, consumption of cocoa May significantly improve cognitive in older adults with mild cognitive impairment tip number five, meditation, meditating daily for at least 10 to 15 minutes extends cognitive lonja tea.
00:01:45
And also it decreases stress level.
00:01:47
So these were the scientifically proven tips to enhance a brain power. We hope you like this video for more such videos subscribe our Channel and press the Bell icon to get notified. Thank you.