Posted by JohnWilton on October 13, 2003, at 18:59:52
Hi all,
I've been privately viewing many threads on this site for a long time, and have enjoyed thinking about different theories etc.
One idea I've been thinking about is the cause of the disregulation that is characterized in people suffering from depression.
I'm going to briefly outlay the theory, and I hope people will pipe in with arguments/agreements etc.
There is a lot of talk about how suppressed emotions are harmful for your body and mind. There are some theories of why this is the case. One theory , presented on gocure.com, talks about how suppressing anger causes depression. She presents the theory on toxic neurons. However she doesn't really show how that leads to depression exactly.
My theory is that when you suppress emotions, what you are suppressing is the chemical energy that resides in the hypothalamus and amygdala. Just like how muscle cells atrophy when not stimulated, so do "emotion" cells. The hypothalamus and surrounding brain areas have been known to be involved in anger especially.
Now, lets say you suppress your anger. Because your hypothalamus is not stimulated, the neurons become atrophied. This can also can a buildup of toxic metabolites in the cell. Since the cells are all clogged up and atrophied, this is why the hypothalamus shrinks in people with depression.
So, now that the cells have a buildup of toxic materials in them, many of these materials end up clogging up receptors, which interfers with all the activity in the HPA axis.
This is just a theory. I'm trying to come up with an idea of how to tie in the theory on gocure.com, with the HPA axis disregulation. To me, it seems that all of this should somehow tie together.
Let the babble begin.
poster:JohnWilton
thread:269099
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031010/msgs/269099.html