Eavesdropping: Dr. Helen Mayberg on Self-Connectedness & Depression

"You can actually study intense personal sadness and map it... you can actually do that same thing in people who are depressed. And actually look at the differences between being depressed and being situationally depressed and being sad. There are areas of the brain that are different.

And what just struck me -- it kind of was a lightbulb moment for me now -- from some of our data, that the part that differs is in an area of the frontal cortex that is responsible for the self-connectedness.

And in depressed people, when they are currently depressed, and they get sad, that area of the brain doesn't come on as it does in healthy people who are experiencing a past episode recollecting a sad event..."

Dr. Helen Mayberg on Charlie Rose: The Brain Series




Self-connectedness and depression.  It makes so much sense. And the fact that there is a location in the brain that lights up when we feel connected to ourselves is fascinating!  So the question that occurs to me when I see a depressed patient is: what, exactly, is being depressed in this person?  If it is in fact a connection to the self -- to the very core of one's being -- then the key to resolving a depression is finding your way back to a feeling of connection to your innermost sense of yourself.

Easier said than done, I suppose.