Depression and Learning

A blog focusing on the effects of depression on learning and its elements. For PSY260.

[theeverlastingstaircase]

What is memory?

a quick entertaining video on what memory is (as a function of the brain)

[theeverlastingstaircase]

How Depression Affects Learning— BipolarDisorderCenters.com

“Depression can impair one’s cognitive functioning. The disorder interferes with one’s thought process, the ability to make decisions and concentration. Depression changes the brain, which can slow the brain’s functioning. Depressed people frequently experience memory problems and have trouble remembering events or details. As a result they may be unable to complete tasks that require both high-motor and cognitive skills. Patients may appear confused, scatterbrained, overwhelmed or become frustrated easily. Even everyday tasks can be difficult for someone struggling with depression. These mental impairments are especially costly to children and students who are still attempting to learn crucial fundamental skills.”

[theeverlastingstaircase]

Cognitive Difficulties Associated with Depression: What are the Implications for Treatment?— Delgado and Schillerstrom (2009)

--------------

article published in the Psychiatric Times that discusses the cognitive impairments associated with major depression

makes some associations between subjective complaints of those suffering from MDD (such as lack of concentration) and cognitive abnormalities (such as white matter hyperintensities)

“In younger adults, some data suggest that mental slowing and reduced motivation and attention may contribute to the apparent dysfunction in other cognitive domains. Cognitive dysfunction in younger adults tends to improve with treatment, although some patients continue to have residual mild impairment.”

article makes suggestions on how research and development of new cognitive treatments can help in alleviating some of the more severe symptoms of MDD

Implications:

Although the article does not explicitly associate depression and learning, many of the “cognitive dysfunctions” the paper focuses on are commonly associated with learning and it is subsequently easier to make a correlation.

for example, the article discusses reduced motivation, and motivation is key to learning, as well as being associated with reward systems

[theeverlastingstaircase]

Learning as a Model for Neural Plasticity in Major Depression—Nissen et al. (2010)

-----------

This study investigates a novel concept in the etiology of MDD, in which researchers suggest it is a dysfunction in neural plasticity (which is what drives organisms to adapt to their environment via internal and external cues) that results in major depressive disorder

neuroplasticity hypothesis of MDD

Implicates the hippocampus, amygdala, and primary cortex in this research, three structures that have been shown to be central in learning and conditioning

“to probe plasticity, memory consolidation was assessed using three tasks for which learning has been shown to strongly depend on local synaptic refinement in brain regions of interest”

Data provides support the above hypothesis

results: “depressed subjects showed a significant deficit in declarative memory consolidation and enhanced fear acquisition"

less successful in recalling word-pairs, as well as experiencing impaired visual discrimination        

Implications:

If people who suffer from depression are less able to modify their circuitry to adapt to being in a new environment, actively remember key facts, or have trouble making differentiations, the effects of MDD can not only have a detrimental effect on quality of life but on possible recovery from the causes of the disorder.

[theeverlastingstaircase]

What is learning?

a short informative video on the learning process and how learning changes with age and environment

[theeverlastingstaircase]

Depression impairs learning, whereas the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, paroxetine, impairs generalization in patients with major depressive disorder-- Herzallah et al. (2013)

------------------------

In this study, researchers gave three separate groups (medication-naive patients with MDD;medicated patients with MDD; healthy controls) a computer-based cognitive task that incorporated two phases: 1. a sequence learning task via reward-based feedback and 2. a generalization phase where learned rules were to be applied.

They found that medication-naive patients were slower in learning the first phase (which was striatal-dependent) and normal on the second vs. medicated patients that were normal on the first phase and slower on the second (hippocampal-dependent).

Implications for learning:

Impaired learning for those suffering from major depressive disorder (performance was similar to that of patients with Parkinson's disease).

The use of SSRIs (a common anti-depressant) may have a detrimental effect on any learning that is dependent on medial temporal lobe structure

[theeverlastingstaircase]

What is depression?

a brief video that highlights the common symptoms of depression