According to a study performed in U.S., it is suggested that one should not take depression or stress lightly, as both of these condition can shrink your brain. The shrunken brain thus leads to mental and emotional degradation of the person suffering from it.

The latest findings done by researchers and reported in annual reports of the journal Nature Medicine discovered that the reason behind shrinking brain is a single genetic switch, which is responsible for the depression and loss of brain connection in both humans and animals. The transcription factor referred to as the genetic switch in above statement represses the genes expression necessary for building up the synaptic connections among various brain cells. Thus, resulting in loss of brain mass.

As per the author Ronald Duman, Professor of Neurobiology, Pharmacology and Psychiatry at Yale University, the idea behind this research is to build the connection that stress is the major contributor towards loss of brain synapses. He added that the study revealed that circuits or the junction of nerve cells are involved in cognition as well as emotional behavior of the human being, which gets disrupted when the genetic switch is activated.

The research team involved in the research process has analyzed the donated brain tissues of both depressed and non-depressed patients and looked for changed patterns of the activated genes. The brain tissues of the depressed patients exhibited lowered levels of gene expressions required for the structure and function of brain synapses.

Hence, it becomes even more important to get your stressed or depressed condition diagnosed from a specialist before it gets out of hand.

Written By: Dr. Harman