Results of a large scale study indicate a considerable link between inherited depression and brain cortex thinning that occurs in the hemisphere.

Dr. Myrna Weissman led that study which published in the online journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Dr. Bradley Peterson was the first author of that study who is director of MRI Research in Psychiatry department at Columbia University Medical Center.

Peterson, Weissman and colleagues noticed the people with higher risk of becoming the victim of depression had 28% thinner brain cortex than those who didn’t have any known risk for the disease.

According to the researchers these results were quite amazing for them” “This rate of brain thinning is equal to brain loss amount that could be seen in the people with schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease,” Peterson says.

“The amount of difference was so great that we couldn’t even believe it, so we checked it again and again to find out all the alternative explanations, but the same difference occurred again and again.”

Explaining about how thinner cortex has link to depression, Peterson says that this thinness seems to affect a person’s ability to pay proper attention and make sense of emotional and social responses from other people.

In their study, Peterson and colleague also tested the levels of inattention of the participants of the study

What is depression?

Depression is a state of mind where the person feels anxious mental condition. The person has negative thoughts and pessimistic feeling, he remain continually in sad mood. The person feels alone and his thoughts can lead him to serious mental illness, schizophrenia and some time he tries for committing suicide.

Depression is not a sign of person weakness it has become a common disorder in today’s hectic world. There are many reasons of depression but one can easily identify the symptoms of depression and help the person to overcome it.

Only some symptoms can easily identifiable .The symptoms like getting weight or losing of weight, insomnia or excessive sleep can be the symptoms of depression. There can some other reason like guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, anxiety, fear, and decreased self esteem.

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A new study suggests that older fathers may have children with bipolar disorder. This risk begin to increase when men are older than 29 and they get married. And it reaches at its peak when men are over 55.

Some other diseases like schizophrenia and autism are also linked with increasing parental age, but it’s a first study that suggests bipolar disorder or manic depression also has link with increasing parental age.

This Swedish study has been published in Archives of Psychiatry and it tells that ageing sperm may be a factor behind that increasing risk.

The Karolinska Institute researchers say in this connection, it involves copying DNA in the process of making sperm in men and this process is considered prone to error as men get older.

Emma Frans, who led the study, said: “Women come in this world with their full supply of eggs and that’s why DNA copy errors do not increase as women get older.”

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