Depression May Provide Cognitive Advantages 512
Hugh Pickens writes "Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr. argue in Scientific American that although depression is considered a mental disorder, depression may in fact be a mental adaptation which provides real benefits. This is not to say that depression is not a problem. Depressed people often have trouble performing everyday activities, they can't concentrate on their work, they tend to socially isolate themselves, they are lethargic, and they often lose the ability to take pleasure from such activities such as eating and sex. So what could be so useful about depression? 'Depressed people often think intensely about their problems,' write the authors. 'These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.' Various studies have found that people in depressed mood states are better at solving social dilemmas and there is evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test (PDF). 'When one considers all the evidence, depression seems less like a disorder where the brain is operating in a haphazard way, or malfunctioning. Instead, depression seems more like the vertebrate eye — an intricate, highly organized piece of machinery that performs a specific function.'"
old news (Score:5, Interesting)
I am lazy and I did a quick google and couldn't find a link...
However, I remember reading about a study in my college Psychology class that pointed to the fact that people depressed actually have a *clearer* view of reality when compared to the non-depressed. It's a rose colored glasses type of effect. When given questions about certain situations, clinically depressed persons tended to give more answers that matched up with the real-world reality of situations than the non-depressed.
In other words the world is shit I am justified in being depressed all the time.
wait... (Score:2, Interesting)
if you are better at solving your problems when you are depressed, how come depressed people commit suicide when they are faced with problems?
What about suicide (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wait, so my depression is good? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I am very intelligent. I am very successful in my career. I have a lot of people telling me how they would love to swap positions. I can tell you that for every person that I meet who is dumb and unsuccessful, yet happy in their lives, I would swap places in an instant.
I got asked once, if I would prefer to live intelligently in a prison knowing I was in one, or stupidly in the same place not knowing what it was. I would choose the latter.
Have a read of some of my musings and art to see some of my side of the coin:
Normal [deviantart.com]
Two Little Boys [deviantart.com]
Positive and Negative [deviantart.com]
and finally Depression [deviantart.com] the file in my sig.
For the record I am bipolar (Manic Depressive in old terminology).
Re:What about suicide (Score:1, Interesting)
Person has a problem -> become slightly depressed and their brain is put in "problem solving mode" -> they solve the problem and become normal again.
or:
Person has a problem -> become slightly depressed and their brain is put in "problem solving mode" -> they fail at solving their problem -> become more depressed -> they fail ->
Re:Genius has its cost or v/v, maybe. Sometimes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:old news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wait, so my depression is good? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some people deliberately refuse to solve their problems since they've come to rely on the depression to help them with things like art and music. Solving the problems and removing the depression would be the end to the stream of creativity they've become accustomed to. It's not very different than an alcoholic refusing to get sober because they would have to re-learn how to live life since so many things would change.
Re:it makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Outer alloy
Inner void
Marvin
Happiness has been destroyed
Re:What about suicide (Score:4, Interesting)
When the body adapts to challenges, but you don't change anything and don't solve the problems the body has adapted to, the brain's functions go haywire.
So this research says you have a problem, or several problems. Instead of using depression to advantage and actually resolving things, people tend to distract themselves with TV and alcohol or other drugs. They even take antidepressants, which make them feel they don't have to change anything at all.
Eventually the brain can't cope, and it basically says "HEY, I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU, PLEASE LISTEN" and then it just gets frustrated and gives up. That could be why you have "cry for help" suicide attempts with depressed people, instead of actual success.
Yes they do kill themselves, but in a world without plentiful and available alcohol, and without TV, and other distractions, it could help you focus on the problem at hand. Remember, survival advantage is usually measured on an organism and its natural environment - abnormal environments yield abnormal behaviour.
An expression of "Depressive Realism" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is basically where people who are prone to depression have markedly less influence by illusiory conditions. They view the world as it is, without the rose tinted spectacles of the non-depressed.
This gives a general predisposition towards problem solving and accurate assessment of situations, allowing the excision of the personal investment in problems, treating the problem as a more logical construct, which overall leads to better problem solving (which has been researched since the late 70s and 80s).
However, depression being what it is, it doesn't make life around a depressed person any easier, and isn't that great for the depressed person themselves (I speak as one that's prone to that state of mind and have to be a little careful from time to time; it does make things in my favourite field of IT Business Continuity seem somewhat easier than it does for most though, with me jokingly being accused of having enough paranoia for the whole hospital).
The trouble with "Depressive Realism" is that it's not entirely evident whether it's the realistic state of mind that brings about depression (having trouble with the normal chit chat that greases the social wheels, yet goes nowhere, is a real drag and will definitely get you down), or whether it's the depressive state of mind that leaves you more objective.
functionless until proved grantable (Score:5, Interesting)
Ruminant depression is a different order of magnitude from end-of-universe major depression. Which do they mean?
Sherwin Nuland on electroshock therapy [ted.com]
At the other end of the spectrum, it's just a mood disorder (and working title of Annie Hall).
Anhedonia [wikipedia.org]
Years ago I read an article about stress and the immune system. The claim was that under stress, the immune cells leave the blood stream and enter into the skin cells. Hence the collapse of immune levels in the blood stream. Stress is often associated with physical confrontation. Perhaps under this circumstance the body is more concerning about fighting off infection from skin trauma than whether the last meal was a mite tainted, or some child has picked up a sneeze.
I haven't seen this followed up, but does it really make sense that body's response to stress is to shut down the immune system? Never to me, it didn't.
Another great one is the doctors instructing you that "whatever your itch system conveys, ignore it".
'Itchy' neurons tell mice when to scratch [www.cbc.ca]
So we have an entire nervous subsystem devoted to itch, and our only response is to not listen?
I read an article that the appendix is now believed to act as a pocket of gut bacteria to restart the gut after a core dump.
And then there was the whole thing about "junk DNA" where junk is apparently a scientific word meaning "you can't write a successful grant to study this". From another perspective, at the original sequencing cost of $1 per base pair, I can feel their pain.
I get mighty tired of the scientific meme "functionless until proved grantable". Were the scientists originally responsible for this, or the surgeons?
How many doctors does it take to change a light bulb? Three, but while they're at it, they'll change the socket too.
Re:Reverse causation (Score:3, Interesting)
The trouble with clinical depression is that it makes its victims miserable. So miserable that they often turn to drugs (whether prescription or illegal) or alcohol. My friend Amy, a hardcore alcoholic (in treatment for her alcoholism right now) was almost thirty before she started drinking, but had suffered from depression almost all her life.
Considering what she's told me about her upbringing, It's no wonder she suffers from depression.
Interestingly, though, when I was prescribed Paxil for adjustment disorder with depressed mood [wikipedia.org] after my divorce, the drug dulled my drive and curiosity as well as my depression.
Re:Reverse causation (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that's true. It's a Doestoevskian state really. The problem with depression isn't depression, it's dealing with the idiots that aren't depressed.
I often wonder if it's the depressed people that are the sane ones and that it's the "sane" majority who are really crazy.
Which leads me to the fact that depression is improperly handled by medicine, by society, and economics too. Depressed people don't necessarily need medication nor counseling, what they really need is a whole other system of society away from the people who seem to enjoy "normal" things.
Things like work life balance, 9-5, utility bills, banking rules, corporate hierarchy, living to work, etc will never work for anyone with higher cognitive function. There is no meaning in having a job like that, or living like that. Being a drone does not advance society.
Many depressed people have the skills to change and develop society for the advancement of all. Using the current techniques to force a depressed person to stop being depressed and "fit-in", is actually potentially a bad thing for the species in my opinion.
However...that said, the depressed are dangerous to those who want to maintain the status quo and exploit society. Which may well be the reason that it's easier for society to try keep them medicated and out of the way. Melancholia was actually an admired quality in previous centuries. It's only in the industrial age that it's been frowned upon.
Re:Reverse causation (Score:5, Interesting)
What's depressing about those events, from stricter copyright and anti-terror laws cutting away our freedoms to economic downturn and politicians spinning 'solutions' to it that are none but make just them and their cronies richer, is that you sit there, you know it's going to hit the wall and you're utterly helpless against the collective ignorance that allows it to happen. It's like watching a train ablaze on fire running at full speed and without a conductor straight for a cliff with people singing inside. You know they're doomed, you know they'll meat a fiery and unpleasant grave, you may even be on the train, but you can't do anything about it. You can only sit there and either muse over the stupidity of humanity or join in the party.
Things that affect me, locally, I can usually change. They don't make me depressed, they make me active, if anything. It's not depressing when it's within your power to avoid a catastrophe. It's actually quite compelling to get off your butt and DO something.
It's depressing when you know that you're utterly powerless against it.
Re:Wait, so my depression is good? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, no shit. I used to write music and do all sorts of creative things, and once I became content with life, it became a huge pain in the ass to do anything relatively creative.
The transformation is like going from an existential POV to a nihilistic POV. All of a sudden, nothing matters because your 'problems' are all solvable and have simple answers. Imagine if Nietzsche had just decided that all of his gloomy over-thinking was a symptom of his dysfunctional childhood, and then went out and started a family and lived happily ever after.
I like to think that it's possible to be creative without living a life filled with unnecessary drama, and that it just takes an extraordinarily adept person to do so, but sometimes I'm not so sure.
Coping methods are not guaranteed (Score:4, Interesting)
When people are depressed there can be considered two types -- 1) survivors and 2) dead
The dead are people who are actually dead or pretty much on their way to that end. Those remaining are survivors. To become a survivor, one has to adjust and adapt. Closing down the emotional parts of the personality is just such a coping method that works for many who would otherwise be ruled by their less stable emotional components. The observations made are essentially looking at "what's left over" when the emotional part of a personality is suppressed.
As another commenter pointed out, depressed artists use their more intense and unstable emotional core to enhance their works. So the result of depression is not always becoming more analytical and good at problem solving, but rather, it is a common result found when all other aspects of a personality are controlled, limited or suppressed.
And those that do not manage to control, limit or suppress their emotional components end up in jail, mental institutions or dead and generally progress beyond simple depression (meaning they no longer fit into the category of "the depressed") into much more dramatic categories.
Not a bag of chips (Score:1, Interesting)
In light of this article, a lot of you guys are trying to make depression seem like an eye opening experience. When I'm depressed, it's true that I tend to get lost in deep thought more often, and the rose tinted goggles are definitely gone, but it's more like they're replaced with shit tinted specs. I tend to think I'm worthless and can't do anything, that no one wants me around, and that everything is being designed for my failure. The end result is that I'm demotivated and I don't want to do anything. That's what depression is, not a fun day at camp fucking intellectual as everyone seems to want to believe it is.
Re:Reverse causation (Score:5, Interesting)
>It's not an intelligence boost, just a way of coping with a problem.
In other words: it's focus. The equivalent of a retreat - buggering off to some cave to contemplate the mysteries of life - why it's so unpleasant, etc. because you NEED to come to some sort of understanding of whatever it is that's going on with your life in order to move on.
It's a koan - a spiritual dilemma which MUST be surmounted/resolved/transcended before ANYTHING else can be done, before life can go on.
A crisis, which requires intense contemplation to the exclusion of all else. Which isn't strictly true, because a healthy balance is needed to resolve any issue: forgetting the problem, gaining new experiences, doing thing entirely unrelated.
I've suffered from depression and despite all my intense contemplation of why and what was going on that was causing me to be depressed, additional diverse experiences, exposure to differing thinking, seeming unconnected phenomena was crucial in gaining any insight - as was just forgetting about things for a bit. Usually answers came quite unexpectedly when the issue was entirely out of mind. Of course, the focus was necessary, but so was the letting go.
These days I try to avoid deep intense analytical thought - and I think I have more insight. Analytical thought can only take you so far - at a certain point you're merely re-arranging the furniture, where what you need is creativity and insight. The trick I think is to recognice the limitations of each and apply them appropriately. And in all things, apply balance.
Re:Wait, so my depression is good? (Score:5, Interesting)
Woody Allen once wrote a short story on a man who was tasked by God to find the happiest couple on Earth. He actually finds them.
And they're dumb as a pair of sheep.
Laugh all you want, there is much truth in this.
Depression or Anxiety, Which Would You Prefer? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a history of dealing with depression that goes back many years. It comes and goes. But lately, I have succumbed to levels of anxiety that are wholly unfamiliar to me. It seems that the only way to reverse the anxiety (besides Xanax) is to revert to a more depressed state. The depression actually feels comfortable by comparison. I suppose that's because I'm used to it.
Re:Reverse causation (Score:1, Interesting)
As a person who's gone through years of depression, with islands of severe depression, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I don't see how those nights I spent afraid to sleep because of my disturbing dreams, or the days where I couldn't stop taking pills or searching for veins to slice, helped society. And I don't see how the people who helped me back on the path of the sane did it to imprision my mind. Perhaps I'm not quite as analytical as I was a few years ago, but I'm capable of thinking of things other than being a shitbag.
Yes, depression is not handled well by society. A lot of people just can't understand it. Bliss is far too overrated. But I don't see how keeping loved ones alive and trying to help them overcome pain deserves this sort of attack.
Re:Wait, so my depression is good? (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year, and almost all my life before that, I was in the same position.
On paper, my life was great - phenomenal test scores, CTO and one of the founders of a successful software company, good income, attending Harvard, etc. Tall, attractive, etc.
And yet, my life was hell. Many emotions (love, empathy, grief, joy) were literally missing. I had family, pets, etc. die - I felt nothing, so I watched others and emulated them, lest people think I was callous. I didn't want them to see that I was empty inside - filled with only anger, hate, jealousy, etc.
I was rather sociopathic - it made me a great salesperson, and a very lousy human being. I didn't date, I had only 1 long-term friend. In many ways, he was more screwed up than I.
The irony is that ultimately it was my suicide plans that saved me.
I had decided to end my life, and to ensure I would not be screwing over my family (who I was supporting), I decided to get insurance, and stage an accident. Yes, I am aware this is fraud - I was not right in the head. The fact I'm typing this is a pretty good indication I didn't go through witih it.
As part of the insurance process, they did blood analysis. This caught that my cholesterol levels were extremely low.
Further investigation showed that my body does not properly produce cholesterol, and that it messed up my hormonal levels - horribly.
I now chug heavy whipping cream at night, and take hormonal replacement. The depression is gone, and I am a generally happy human being.
When I do what I feel is right, I enjoy it - when I hurt others, or do what I feel is wrong, I feel bad. It's a very profound feeling for someone who has never felt that before. I went on my first date - I never imagined that being with someone in a social situation could feel so good.
We are chemical beings, running on chemical processes. As we get a better understanding of the brain, how things work - more and more people are finding things that can help. I hope, I sincerely do, that you are able to find your answers, and soon.
Re:Reverse causation (Score:1, Interesting)
Please. Never. Ever. Comment on a discussion about clinical depression.
What you are talking about and what clinical depression is are so unrelated that it is painful to read what you have written.
Clinical depression is (can be) a disease of immense, insidious proportions. It's not "I am depressed about ____." It's an entirely different state of cognition and experience.
I would die happily if I could experience the kind of depression you are talking about.
(p.s., to people who say that you have to be stupid to not be depressed... you're wrong, and self-deluding. This transition isn't from intelligence and depression to stupidity and happiness. It's from obsessive-analysis and detached superiority to curiosity and involvement. This has nothing to do with intelligence.)
Re:Reverse causation (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't say that "Things like work life balance, 9-5, utility bills, banking rules, corporate hierarchy, living to work, etc will never work for anyone with higher cognitive function." I myself have tested out several times on IQ tests at the top end of "Genius" (For whatever that is worth...I know I'm bright but I don't know how much stock I put into the IQ numbers) and struggle with those things. My brain simply doesn't work 9-5. It works when it works and I have little control over it. I do consulting now for the last five years and make my own hours, but when I was working 8-4:30 the prospect of being punished/losing my job for punching in at 8:07 kept me anxious and awake at nights....leading me to punch in at 8:07. On the other hand I have a friend that has tested out well into the 170's which is "High Genius" and when we work on problems together it is clear that he is more intelligent than me. He has no problems with the 9-5 world. He doesn't have the psychological problems I do. He's a HAPPIER person in general.
Maybe he is an outlier, maybe not. I've considered for awhile that there is a sweet spot in the "Genius" range where people are too smart to cope, not smart enough to figure out how to cope with being too smart. Of course, with the small amount of people who qualify for high genius status it is probably pretty hard to make that determination.
I just read back on my post and frankly, I'd imagine that anyone reading this is probably thinking "Genius my ass..this guy isn't making sense." I apologize. I had a hard time putting into words what I was trying to say, but hopefully some of you can understand it. ;)
Re:it makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Bypassing the Slashdot summary (which appears to have been written by the authors of the Scientific American Article that the link takes you to - or at least it uses their exact words), and ignoring the Scientific American Article, which was written by the authors of a paper to promote their own paper - I went to the article (The Bright Side of Being Blue: Depression as an adaptation for analysing complex problems" 2009, Psychological Review, 116, 620-654).
The authors' main point seems to be that if a person has a complex problem that needs to be solved, then withdrawing from social contact, ruminating on your problems, taking no pleasure in anything (i.e. focusing exclusively on your problems) and so on (the symptoms of depression) make sense because the chance of solving a problem will be higher. And, since depressed people have a cognitive style which cause them to be better at focusing on the micro-detail of problems ("ruminating"), depression has an adaptive function - it helps us solve problems.
It's certainly true that depressed people are very good ruminators, although this is generally described in negative terms as a "faulty cognitive style" because depressed people ruminate on problems that either (a) have no real existence outside of their heads or (b) exist but would be solved (or accepted) by most people without the person becoming disabled. Hence we hear stories of people who commit suicide for odd-seeming reasons (someone insulted them on facebook).
So, I'm thinking that the authors are over-extrapolating a slight superiority in a particular problem-solving skill to a conclusion that "Depression [is] an adaptation for analyzing complex problems". I'm thinking that depression is to problem solving what cytokine storm is to a healthy immune response.