Depression's Evolutionary Roots | Hacker News Reader

Depression's Evolutionary Roots

scientificamerican.com

21 pointsmmt17 comments

The submitted article makes an interesting evolutionary argument that depressive realism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism

is to be expected rather than puzzling.

No, it doesn't. It says that depression is a useful trait for ruminating over, and thereby solving, social dilemmas, not that the life is really as bleak as it seems when you're depressed.

Puts an interesting spin on antidepressants.

Yes, Kay Redfield Jamison, author of Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament,

http://www.amazon.com/Touched-Fire-Manic-Depressive-Artistic...

and co-author of the definitive text on manic-depressive illness

http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Depressive-Illness-Disorders-Rec...

has thought out loud in her writings over the years about whether treatments for depression that help suffering people may also deprive society of creative output. Her current thinking on the issue--and she takes lithium herself every day--is that the best-evidenced mood-stabilizing treatments for mood disorders are helpful to patients and increase rather than decrease their ability to contribute useful work product to society. Her co-author, Frederick K. Goodwin, M.D., is still deeply skeptical of some antidepressant medications (e.g., the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) because of their capacity for inducing mania in many bipolar patients.

Interesting idea, that depression is useful for ruminating. But, the reasoning seems premised on the idea that depressions are triggered by stressful events like discovering that your spouse has been unfaithful. Doesn't most depression occur due to seasonal changes such as the length of the day? (Hence depressions that occur at the same time each year, the effectiveness of treatments involving exposure to light at certain times of the day, etc.) The noteworthy, puzzling thing about depression is that it comes "out of the blue", for no apparent reason, not in response to circumstances that would explain a negative emotion. Also, when it lifts, there is similarly no apparent explanation. A problem did not get resolved; a rumination did not complete.

I wonder if you could resolve it using something like this.

Depression still exists due to the evolutionary reasons described in the article. However, since depression is caused by certain reactions in the brain, other things can cause depression.

Just a guess though.

Another problem with the theory: a major symptom of depression is inability to concentrate. When you're depressed, it's like your IQ takes a 30-point hit. You become much worse at thinking things through.

Depends on what you're trying to think about, and what kind of depression you have, doesn't it?

That seems to fit the article. If someone is depressed about their cheating spouse, and the person is spending all of their thought process cycles on that, you wouldn't expect them to be good at math problems, or even other social problems. The article describes depression as very focused thought, so the ability to do anything else would presumeably suffer.

The problem is that what you are ruminating over is probably not something that can be fixed by thinking. For instance if her husband is cheating on her, the woman should confront him. So depression would be adaptive only for certain kinds of problems. Perhaps we over use it because in more primitive conditions we would be constantly reacting to life and would be acting on instinct most of the time.

This explanation of depression makes sense: My wife, who owns a gas station went into a depression when I told her about the latest developments in electric vehicles and how it would turn her job into a nonsense in the near future. Because she could not object to the situation, she had no other way but adapt to it and later came a real clinical depression, all because of what I reminded her.

One of my dreams is to write an article worthy of being published in Scientific American, and getting it published there. SciAm consistently impresses me - they'll break new and groundbreaking things, but what's more impressive to me is how they avoid not giving into fluff the way many other publications do. And they make science pretty accessible and interesting. I've never written as more than a semi-professional hobby, but I'd love to put some of my research together well enough to get into the magazine at some point.

SciAm is indeed amazing, but this particular article seems like pure speculation.

It's speculation with logic. You don't always need make measurements to get accurate conclusions.

The points in this article sound logical to me and also useful. Dismissing them as "pure speculation" does not seem justified.

Don't get me wrong. I love speculation. Speculation drives science, and I don't think any interesting scientific idea can ever be conclusively "proven". Just, what's this article doing in SciAm? For an idea to get into SciAm is a big score because the idea has matured and seems significant. This one just sounds like something a couple guys would kick around over a beer without really knowing much about the topic. See my comments elsewhere on this page for specific, well-known problems that the article doesn't address.

Depressions/recessions are like forest fires, necessary evils that purge old models to make way for new ones. It's the best time to innovate and impact the world.

Wrong meaning of "depression", as you'd have found if you'd read even the first two sentences of the article.

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