Chapter 12: Putting it all Together

Genes, Stress, Depression and Atrophy

Knowing, at a biological level, that a big part of the problem is “not your fault”, might be at least part of the tool set you can use to get better — or at least suffer less with what you’ve got. Perhaps it will help, at least somewhat, to keep your own mind from making things worse. I hope that turns out to be true for you.

Here are the key concepts for each chapter, all in a row, so you can review what you’ve learned, with a link for each if you’d like to review.

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Although it might seem like knowing which allele lengths you have would be a great thing, there are some reasons to be cautious.

Chapter 6:

Here is the problem, described in the next 4 chapters, and the hoped-for results of treatment, detailed in Chapter 11:
(Most of the images in these chapters, including these two, are used by courtesy of Dr. Husseini Manji; please do not copy them)

Chapter 7:

Stress causes the normal production of new neurons in the hippocampus (“neurogenesis”) to slow or stop; and it may be that antidepressants work by accelerating that process.

Chapter 8:

Chapter 9:

Chapter 10:

Chapter 11:

Antidepressant treatments and lithium lead to mprovements in structure (before lithium above, after lithium below)

and in function (perhaps directly related to the structural changes, but welcome in any case) :

(updated 12/2014)