[KoK! Health] Is Depression a Mental Illness? "Brain Function Impairment Requiring Treatment"

Decrease in Frontal Lobe Brain Gyri Leads to Emotional Regulation Dysfunction

A study has found that functional abnormalities in the brain may influence the onset of depression.

[Image provided by Pixabay]

Korea University Anam Hospital announced that a research team led by Professors Han Gyuman and Ham Byungjoo, along with Research Professor Kang Yubin (first author) from the Department of Psychiatry, identified that patients with depression have significantly fewer folds in the brain regions responsible for emotional regulation compared to those without depression.

Depression usually occurs after experiencing significant stress. However, in some cases, it does not develop, indicating that vulnerability to depression varies among individuals, according to the research team. Recently, there has been a claim that depression is not merely a mental illness but that functional abnormalities in the brain may affect the vulnerability to depression onset.

The research team compared brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and various clinical data, including the severity of depressive symptoms, between 234 adults aged 19 to 64 with depression and 215 healthy controls. The results revealed that in patients with depression, the folds in the brain regions responsible for emotional regulation?the frontal lobe, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex?were reduced by up to approximately 5% compared to those without depression.

The brain regions responsible for emotional regulation recognize and process negative emotions. A reduction in the folds of these areas can lead to dysfunction in the emotional regulation neural circuits, increasing the risk of developing depression.

Brain folds are generally formed by genetic and environmental factors from the fetal stage to infancy and do not show noticeable changes afterward. Therefore, the degree of folding in the frontal lobe, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex can be used as a brain imaging biomarker to measure an individual's inherent risk of developing depression.

Professor Han explained, "This study demonstrated that a reduction in folds in the frontal lobe provides a biological basis for increasing the risk of depression onset," adding, "In the future, quantified data on cerebral cortical folds will provide a foundation to offer individual patients information about their vulnerability to depression or emotional regulation disorders."

This study was published online in 'Psychological Medicine,' one of the international academic journals in the field of psychiatry.

Professor Han Gyuman (left) and Research Professor Kang Yubin from the Department of Psychiatry at Korea University Anam Hospital.
[Photo by Korea University Anam Hospital]

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