J Psych Neurosci: Suffering from both anxiety disorders and depression may make the brain larger.

August 8, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal Journal of The Bachelor and Neuroscience entitled "Volumetric brain differences in clinical depression in contact with anxiety: a system review with meta-analysis", scientists from the Australian National University and other institutions have found that depression or the size of a shrinking area of the individual brain, but when depression is combined with anxiety, this area of the brain becomes significantly larger.
: Researchers studying more than 10,000 participants revealed the effects of depression and anxiety disorders on the body's brain capacity, and the results suggest that depression may have a significant effect on the sea mass, an important area of the brain associated with memory and learning ability.
, the researchers found that when depression and anxiety occur at the same time, they increase the size of the emotionally related areas of the brain, the size of the amygdala.
researcher Dr Daniela Espinoza points out that many studies looking at the effects of depression on the brain may not explain the fact that people with depression often experience anxiety, one of the world's most debilitating diseases, with one in six Australians suffering from depression, anxiety or both. the
researchers found that many areas of the brain of individuals suffering from depression alone have smaller capacities, especially the seaum, which is critical for later life because smaller seaums are often a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and can also exacerbate dementia.
An important finding of this study is that many areas of the brain of individuals suffering from depression and anxiety shrink less, and even the size of the amygdala increases, suggesting that the true effects of depression on the brain may be underestimated by researchers because they have an opposite effect on the amygdala.
According to Espinoza Oyarce, the final researcher, anxiety disorders reduce the effects of depression on brain size by an average of 3 percent, which in part seems to mask the true atrophy effects of depression on the brain; later researchers need to do more research to clarify how anxiety disorders reduce the effects of depression on the brain, but for the amygdala region, anxiety disorders may lead to overactiveness in the region.
() Original source: Daniela Espinoza Oyarce, Marnie E. Shaw, Khawlah Alateeq, et al. Volumetric brains in clinical depression in association with amsy: a system review with meta-analysis, J. 2020 Jul 29;45 (5): 190156.doi: 10.1503/jpn.190156.