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Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners
Is there a specific test to detect severe depression e.g. CAT Scan?
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A friend of mine with very severe Depression had some sort of test several years ago that showed up the actual area in the brain that was affected.
Does anybody know the name of this test? -
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Dr Simon Easterbrook-Smith
Health Professional
My research interests include immunology and the mechanisms of amyloid formation. The latter has implications for people who are dealing with Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease … View Profile
Brain scanning methods (both CAT and MRI scans) have been used to distinguish between people with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Bipolar Disorder (BD).
For a (very technical) summary of this see;
Kempton et al., 2011
Structural neuroimaging studies in major depressive disorder. Meta-analysis and comparison with bipolar disorder.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 68: 675-90
The abstract is available here; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21727252
Writing as a biomedical research scientist not a health professional, this is very much at the research stage rather than something that is used in a clinical context by mental health professionals.
To quote from Kempton et al.;
"In conclusion, in this meta-analysis, we have shown robust structural brain abnormalities in MDD and particular changes in brain volume that may distinguish MDD from BD. These results **MAY** aid imaging studies aiming to use structural MRI data to distinguish patients with MDD from those with BD. Further studies **MAY** reveal whether these abnormalities are a risk factor for developing MDD, when they first occur, and **WHETHER** they are predictive of treatment response. "
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Dr Simon Easterbrook-Smith
Health Professional
My research interests include immunology and the mechanisms of amyloid formation. The latter has implications for people who are dealing with Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease … View Profile
Edit to my last post - the bits, in upper case flagged by **, in what I quoted from Kempton et al., are my emphasis, not theirs.
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Dr Clive Jones
Counselling Psychologist, Counsellor, Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Sport Psychologist
Dr Clive Jones is a registered psychologist specialising in the assessment and treatment of mental health issues and disorders and High Performance Sport psychology. He … View Profile
You don't need a CAT scan to determine whether or not someone is severely depressed. As you would know, being a friend of someone severely depressed, they will know it if they are and so will those closest to them.
Detecting changes in the brain of someone severely depressed is not to be confused with finding evidence of cause or aetiology. There is a very delicate reciprocal relationship between the biology, psychology and social environment of the individual whereby each of these three components of human existence contribute significantly to our emotional state and mental health.
The plasticity of the brains biology means that our social environments can change our brains biology and reciprocally our brains biology will influence how we engage our social environment.
The biopsychosocial complexity of severe depression and any other mental health state suggests that the unique path taken by each individual in that state has to be treated with the utmost respect for the uniqueness of the case.
Feel free to email if you need anything clarified on what I'm getting at here.Report this post
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