Depression May Change The Color Of Your World

Depression can cause a lot of changes to a victim who is suffering from the ailment. It can change their personality, their emotions, and their general feelings towards the world they live in. However, now research has shown that depression can even change the way a person physically perceives the world by dimming the world of it's beautiful color.

Researchers at the University of Freiburg in Germany have found that people who suffer from depression have a difficult time seeing the differences between the contrasts of black and white. Why this is happening in depressed individuals is still hard to figure out but many feel it has to do with the chemical composition of the brain. Others place the blame on the lack of focus that an individual who is depressed has and even feel that the subconscious mind can be at fault.

The study was conducted by having 40 depression victims and 40 healthy subjects go through various vision tests that had them view flickering black and white checkerboards. While this was happening the researchers tested the retina of the eye using an ECG (electrocardiogram). This showed that the depressed subjects had a much lower retinal response to the varying level of the black and white contrast pictures then the healthy subjects and helped the researchers come up with this theory.

This research can likely help medical professional treat other ailments of a depressed individual by unlocking new ways to bring the color back into a dreary world.

Brain Patterns Could Stand As A Mental Illnesses Prediction

Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or depression can, at times, present themselves and occur without even showing any risk or warning sign of the disease in the victim. This is a concern for medical professionals and patients alike because not being able to predict the onset of these mental illnesses curbs the ability to act and prevent these disorders from taken over the victims' mind. However, now British scientists have found a way to predict the onset of mental illnesses via patterns shown in the brain activity of young people and children. By looking for patterns or "markers" in young people's brain activity these researchers argue that you can find risks for future mental illness.

The study was taken at Nottingham University by comparing the brain patterns of victims of mental illnesses with a control group who were not affected by any sort of mental problem and were actually siblings of the group with mental illnesses. By looking at the patterns, researchers theorized that you could help predict and identify those who are at risk for becoming ill. This could help to both prevent the illness from taking place and medicate those who are at risk before symptoms completely take hold. This is good news for millions of people who are affected by mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and epilepsy because it could possibly stand as a warning sign in preventing mental illness before it even has a chance to start.