Can anxiety/depression damage the brain?

[Jiraiya]

Hi all.

I came across some studies today accidentally, which seem pretty grim! Basically saying that anxiety can cause damage to the brain, which if that is true really sucks haha.

I've suffered from GAD/depression for about 3 years almost. Sometimes it's been really fucking bad, I mean just look at the posts I made a few months back.

Anyway I read into it, but not too much. I'll post some studies below.

http://lifehacker.com/what-anxiety-actually-does-to-you-and-what-you-can-do-a-1468128356
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-11/bcfg-acd111014.php
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...s-can-damage-brain-structure-and-connectivity
http://www.neurogistics.com/conditions/panicdisorder.asp

I don't suffer from panic attacks, more the emotional side of anxiety but I won't lie and say that it isn't severe, because it is. Main symptoms are that horrible fear sensation in the solar plexus, churning stomach and irrational thoughts, with feelings of depression.

Another question is this, do you think they are refering to permanent damage here or down-regulation?

Chronic long-term stress can damage receptors in the brain, resulting in a disrupted shut-off mechanism

Lastly, if anxiety/depression/stress caused brain damage, would it be reversible? I've started making changes in my life which involves alot of meditation, good nutrition, exercize, and I've cut out alcohol.

Looking forward to some replies, thanks everyone.

 

[just a bored guy]

i'm not too sure about the science aspect but being depressed or suffering anxiety /irrational thoughts (unless you enjoy them) etc is just not a good flow of chemicals to the mind,

the mind gets used to these patterns and therefore it gets worse and worse, i think the permanent damage is more relevant to people who will not take things into their own hands and think that they are fucked up and relay solely on others and medication which is not the case in you're situation, its just not healthy and the longer you linger the harder it is to shine.


good luck on your path man, i recently started a similar method myself to get out of some rut in my life.

 

[PotatoMan]

i'm not too sure about the science aspect but being depressed or suffering anxiety /irrational thoughts (unless you enjoy them) etc is just not a good flow of chemicals to the mind,

the mind gets used to these patterns and therefore it gets worse and worse, i think the permanent damage is more relevant to people who will not take things into their own hands and think that they are fucked up and relay solely on others and medication which is not the case in you're situation, its just not healthy and the longer you linger the harder it is to shine.


good luck on your path man, i recently started a similar method myself to get out of some rut in my life.

this.

i personally think the medical treatment of anxiety/depression is more likely to damage the brain.

 

[Ligaturd]

Depression and Schizophrenia have been shown to actually decrease the size of various parts of the brain. I am not very well versed in the terminology and brain structure FYI. Being treated and healing from it will encourage growth in these areas but that can take years. I was recently reading about this very subject and will look for the source a bit later today.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

Jiraiya you poor soul Anxiety itself is no sign of "damage" (it's natural to have some degree of anxiety and even panic attacks rarely), it's more depression that is associated with changes in the brain. Chronic stress (specifically involving cortisol) is thought to cause a decrease in the neurogenesis of the hippocampus, and on that note SSRIs are thought to work by increasing neurogenesis of the hippocampus. But chronic stress doesn't "damage receptors", receptors get recycled all the time anyways.

In major depression sometimes a smaller volume of the hippocampus is seen concerning chronic (like 10 years) patients and then in chronic PTSD sometimes we see enlarged amygdalas and I suppose you might expect to see slightly larger amygdalas in some subset of chronic anxiety patients, but brain structures can change size all the time. Cognitive behavioral therapy has recently been shown to increase overall brain volume. There are also physical brain changes associated with OCD but I can't recall them right now.

So you might be asking yourself, do I have a fundamentally different brain (biology) or is it "all in my head" (psychology), and I think the answer is that the biology produces the psychology, but at the same time the psychology produces the biology. If you're meditating and fundamentally teaching your brain how to go about navigating thought patterns then you will see a genuine rewiring of the brain if you keep at it long enough. The brain trims connections it does not use and strengthens connections it does use! So keep at the meditation. I recommend an app called Headspace by the way, they give you a 10 day free trial.

Exercise increases neurogenesis of serotonin so keep at the cardio, and you honestly can consider several other medications, ranging from Citalopram (I'm considering going back on it myself), to Clonidine or Propranolol (just something to reduce adrenaline, I take these myself).

Any questions are welcome, I hope you feel better soon.

 

[Jiraiya]

i'm not too sure about the science aspect but being depressed or suffering anxiety /irrational thoughts (unless you enjoy them) etc is just not a good flow of chemicals to the mind,

the mind gets used to these patterns and therefore it gets worse and worse, i think the permanent damage is more relevant to people who will not take things into their own hands and think that they are fucked up and relay solely on others and medication which is not the case in you're situation, its just not healthy and the longer you linger the harder it is to shine.


good luck on your path man, i recently started a similar method myself to get out of some rut in my life.

Thanks man. What method have you started to try to get through this?

 

[Jiraiya]

this.

i personally think the medical treatment of anxiety/depression is more likely to damage the brain.

Damn I hope not, I was on Citalopram. Not for long though, only a month including the taper. Also took Lorazepam for a week.

 

[Jiraiya]

Depression and Schizophrenia have been shown to actually decrease the size of various parts of the brain. I am not very well versed in the terminology and brain structure FYI. Being treated and healing from it will encourage growth in these areas but that can take years. I was recently reading about this very subject and will look for the source a bit later today.

Thanks, yeah that's what I read too. I suffer from anxiety more, but I get depression along with it.

 

[Jiraiya]

Jiraiya you poor soul Anxiety itself is no sign of "damage" (it's natural to have some degree of anxiety and even panic attacks rarely), it's more depression that is associated with changes in the brain. Chronic stress (specifically involving cortisol) is thought to cause a decrease in the neurogenesis of the hippocampus, and on that note SSRIs are thought to work by increasing neurogenesis of the hippocampus. But chronic stress doesn't "damage receptors", receptors get recycled all the time anyways.

In major depression sometimes a smaller volume of the hippocampus is seen concerning chronic (like 10 years) patients and then in chronic PTSD sometimes we see enlarged amygdalas and I suppose you might expect to see slightly larger amygdalas in some subset of chronic anxiety patients, but brain structures can change size all the time. Cognitive behavioral therapy has recently been shown to increase overall brain volume. There are also physical brain changes associated with OCD but I can't recall them right now.

So you might be asking yourself, do I have a fundamentally different brain (biology) or is it "all in my head" (psychology), and I think the answer is that the biology produces the psychology, but at the same time the psychology produces the biology. If you're meditating and fundamentally teaching your brain how to go about navigating thought patterns then you will see a genuine rewiring of the brain if you keep at it long enough. The brain trims connections it does not use and strengthens connections it does use! So keep at the meditation. I recommend an app called Headspace by the way, they give you a 10 day free trial.

Exercise increases neurogenesis of serotonin so keep at the cardio, and you honestly can consider several other medications, ranging from Citalopram (I'm considering going back on it myself), to Clonidine or Propranolol (just something to reduce adrenaline, I take these myself).

Any questions are welcome, I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks man, yeah it sucks balls that's for sure! I'm literally in a state of anxiety for most of the day. No panic attacks, just generalized anxiety and obsessive thoughts about brain damage. It's definitely an obsession and I will acknowledge that. I also suffer depression from the anxiety so I hope this isn't changing my brain in some way... now that would suck! I'm definitely not in a good place though, it's a very horrible thing to go through.

I went on Citalopram, and while I didn't really experience depression so much after I took it, I defintely experienced anxiety still. So I probably won't go down the medication road again. I'm exercising and meditating everyday, however it's mainly these damn obsessive thoughts I struggle with.

 

[Seppi]

It's chronically high levels of cortisol which damage the brain; cortisol is also neurotoxic in the short-term at extremely high concentrations. Conditions or drugs which produce either of these events would lead to neurodegeneration. I don't think major depressive disorder or anxiety disorders would cause this unless they were associated with severe symptoms that persist throughout the day, everyday, for months.

 

[Jiraiya]

Damn. Well my suffering is pretty severe haha, so hopefully not.

I think I should take a step back from Bluelight once again. I think it's just gonna increase my anxiety. Thanks for the replies though!

 

[Nagelfar]

This thread is making me depressed.

Anything published to lend credence to the presumption that medications (since these studies are clinically recognized-as-depressed individuals to be statistically so processed, likelihood perhaps they're more often than not being "treated"?) for depression and schizophrenia are what 'decreases' the size of the brain? I know most of the motor-ticks et al. are anti-psychotic medication mediated and not derived from psychosis itself (at least I remember some academic writs to that effect)

 

[Seppi]

Damn. Well my suffering is pretty severe haha, so hopefully not.

I think I should take a step back from Bluelight once again. I think it's just gonna increase my anxiety. Thanks for the replies though!

I honestly don't think it's something you'd need to worry about; however, if you want to put your mind at ease, you could ask your doctor about getting a blood test for plasma corticosteroids, including cortisol. Prolonged high levels of cortisol are associated with a disorder called Cushing's syndrome.

 

[emkee_reinvented]

After a long period of untreated chronic stress I can conclude that longterm exposure had a lasting effect. My memory, which was fine before and razor sharp during, is f*cked. I am way more anxious, never had an anxiety attack before all this. My sleep pattern has changed more sleep less rested. Motivation and drive seem impaired and so is emotion regulation. Feels like something got wrecked inside my head.

Because I couldn't find a dr. or treatment, except ones that costed money, I tried my best to help myself. I focused on cortisol and its effects on the hippocampus as the main problem. Although that's offcourse just one piece of the whole. Oxytocine, which men have little of to begin with looked like an antidote. Repairing damage could maybe be done with phosphatidylserine.

My cash was lacking and my wife wasn't really touchy when I was stressed. So no repairs and no oxytocine. I settled with what I had Ashwhaganda, weed and Kratom.

 

[RednecRampage]

Hello,

I suffer from advanced multiple sclerosis. I have came across some studies that suggest higher levels of anxiety increase the the frequency and/or intensity of damage caused to the CNS by the immune system (MS is believed to be the immune system attacking the insulation around the outside of nerves).
The thing is, many of the studies of CNS damaging diseases are correlative in nature; which is a big no-no in hard sciences using the experimental model. So right now it's boiling down to whose bullshit you believe; and I do not use that cliche lightly or just to have fun. Ad-hoc reasoning seems to leap out from every bush i've encountered while crippled up from this disease and when it comes from Doctors all it does is reinforce my poor opinion of American Medicine.
Frankly, I think Big Pharma is exploiting the hell out of CNS disease domains and apply the Bruce Campbell method: "You know two things - Jack, and shit; and jack left town).
Anyway, the posit is easy to come up with... if your immune system attacks things it determines are detrimental to the body, then it stands to reason that constantly re-firing the memory engrams holding the memories causing your mid-brain circuitry or your flight/fight responses to constantly eat yourself up could be misidentified as a disruptive process but how the immune system would read a synaptic wave pattern versus molecular keying type of things that go on in monoclonal is a far stretch...
To pollute an already rampant highway with a weird naked indian crying over trash bags of alleged scientific thought is the grossly overgeneralized ideological premise that bad emotions equal bad health. Well no shit sherlock because it fires off your aforementioned fight/flight circuit... and that circuit-is- an observable behavior but still with a section of causality missing in the event chain.
But what do I know. Patients are considered 100% biased by Doctors well beyond the mean standard, a convenient excuse to look down on you from over those high-nosed lightning rods passing as glasses for the upper class.
....
The short answer is yes, some studies suggest it. Another answer is yes, those studies have never been properly vetted or validated.
And the long answer is that must be one hell of a bird to spend 4 billion years pecking out of a confession dial. But I digress. Good luck in your hunt.

 

[dopamimetic]

The term of brain damage gets used much too lightly of you ask me. We aren't lab rats that get killed and analyzed after we were made depressed by an animal model. Changes, even seemingly degenerative changes are reversible in many cases, think if the depression resolves much of what we see can regrow (or?).

Tianeptine for example has been said to be able to reverse stress induced changes and believe there isn't even a drug required, the mindset and environment is so mighty.

Don't get fooled by animal studies.

(But yes, anxiety is a fucking real problem and able to kill, at least mentally).

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

^Agreed, "brain damage" is one of those sensationalist labels.

One could make the case that down-regulation is a kind of brain damage, though I'm sure it's more complex than that (what is being down-regulated, and how will that affect other neurons?). But just as the brain has a great ability to adapt overall, down-regulation doesn't have to be permanent. Unless the nucleus of a neuron is significantly damaged, that given neuron can regrow.

I don't think anyone would deny that chronic extreme stress, whether labeled as panic disorder, anixety, or just stress, is not at all good.

No one can tell you when you'll fully recover. There's no manual too. Sounds like you're taking productive steps, though.