Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

If you cannot understand why you’re down when those around you cheer their lives, you’ll be interested in a new study at Stanford University Medical Center.

In their search for a cause of depression researchers identified one pathway that funnels both causes and cures for depression through a single brain circuit.


This breakthrough study reported that changes in electrical signals spread through this circuit appear to be the cause of depression.

In spite of  the brain’s complex electrical circuit, researcher Karl Deisseroth questioned whether brain circuitry malfunction could be at the root of depression. He published the study’s results in further detail in this month’s The Scientist.

He and his team developed a brain imaging tool for more accurate brain images than given by MRI or CT scans. Researchers searched for the cellular basis of these changes in circuitry, in  the formation of new neurons in the hippocampus.

Interestingly. they found that growth of new neurons may account for the behavioral improvements seen from treatment as well as the circuitry changes. My question is, How can humans grow new neurons – to offset problems that come with depression? I think this research shows they are far closer to solutions for that problem.