Brain Scans to Catch Child Depression Before It Starts

Brian Imaging Identifies Great Risk of Depression

Latest developments in brain imaging in identifying children at great risk of depression prior to unbearable and at times dangerous disorder setting in, is being tested by researchers at MIT’s McGovern Institute.It has been estimated by World Health Organization that around 350 million people of all age tend to suffer from depression which is a serious mental disorder.

The study observed a significant negative connection between the depression of parents and kids’ performance at school according to senior author Brian Lee of Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia. Lee stated that depression being a bad thing like any other mental health is less recognized and that mental health affects other people than the people themselves. For parents or guardian, a weak population is their children.

It seems to affect all aspect of a person’s life and in some serious incidents could also lead to suicide cases. Two groups of children are involved in the study, one at high risk of depression owing to family history and a control group with kids at low risk. Kids were scanned from both the groups to map the network pathways in their brains and the question was whether the researchers could detect the difference in brain activity which would indicate a higher risk of depression. The answer was that there were great differences.

Learn to Identify Early Children who are At Real Risk

According to John Gabrieli, professor of Brian and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, they envisaged differences which were striking in various circuits comprising of those which change in depression, inclusive of those involved in feelings and other areas involved in thinking.

Additional thing besides these differences were that the differences were so strong between each child that they were very near to perfect in being capable of categorizing from a brain scan if a child was at risk or not. The aim is to follow these children and observe who among the high risk group tend to develop depression, tracing changes in their brain function all the way.

Gabrieli mentioned that the children which tend to go on to depression more, can be identified more and hope to get preventive treatment and save them from suffering but help them beforehand. He added that they want to learn both to identify early children who are at real risk, help them prior to their struggle and learn from those that are resilient, what could be the difference regarding them since it could give a hint on how to help the children who are not resilient.

Better Understanding on Depression/Improved Treatment Option

The researchers state that a better understanding on how depression tends to affect the brain would eventually lead to improved treatment option for those who may be more at risk. Lee and his colleagues mentioned in JAMA Psychiatry that the earlier studies showed children with depressed parents would possibly have problems with brain development, behaviour and emotions together with the other psychiatric problem. Data from over 1.1 million children born in Sweden between 1984 and 1994 has been utilised for the new study.

3% of mothers and around 2% of fathers had been diagnosed with depression prior to their children finishing their last required year of school which happened around the age of 16 in Sweden. The kids’ grades seemed to suffer, when parents had been diagnosed with depression during their children’s lifespan. Lee considered the link as `moderate’ between parental depression and the children’s school performance