Biological Causes Of Depression Research Paper

, causes depression. The antidepressent, reserpine, depletes the monoamines by stopping them from being Depression is a mental disorder characterized by persistent low mood low self-esteem along with a lost of interest in normal pleasurable activities. Not all types of depressions are a mental disorder, a person can be sufering from normal depression, feeling discouraged and hopeless, which might have been brought on by life events, but they get better with time. The normal depression can become unusually severe or prolonged, leading to a unipolar depression. According to DSM-V, feeling depressed, losing interest in life, weight gain/loss, disturbed sleep, fatigue can be all sign of the major depressive disorder as long as the individual has more than five symptoms, has had them for longer than 2 weeks. (The Open University, 2011, pp 83)
Depression can be caused by a host of different factors incuding biological, psychological,sociocultural factors, but today we will look into the biological causes of depression. Starting with the way neurotransmitters travel between neurons, also known as synapse, then looking at the biomedical model of mental heallth and how it applies to depression. (The Open University 2011, pp44)
The process of communication …show more content…
It focuses on the therory that reducing a group of neurotransmitters called monoamines which include serotonin, noradrenalin and dopaminuptaken into the vesicles and they are broken down in cell. Serotonin is broken down by enzymes and the breaken down products can be detected in the cerebrosinal fluid. Levels of serotonin breakdown products appear to be low in individual suffering from severe depression, meaning that there was less serotonin to start with for breakdown, this implies that not enough serotonin was released from the neuron. (TheOpen University2011, pp