PCL200H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Major Depressive Disorder, Norepinephrine Transporter, Reserpine
Document Summary
Unipolar depression, or major depressive disorder, is diagnosed when people have a combination of the following symptoms: Inability to/decreased interest in experience pleasure in activities that were previously pleasurable (anhedonia), Negative rumination and feelings of guilt or worthlessness. Some of these same symptoms occur in people with schizophrenia. There"s also an overlap of some depression symptoms in people who have bipolar disorder. Depression has a lifetime occurrence of between 10-15%, which means that one out o f every 6-10 people will be diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives. The influence of genetics is less in depression that it is in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A deeply grieving person is still able to experience happiness intermittently, and they generally do not experience loss of self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. One hypothesis about the nature o f depression is that it is caused by reduced levels of monoamine neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and histamine)
