A research article in the journal Biological Psychiatry is making the rounds of the media and here is a newspaper article that appeared in the Washington Post; see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/09/AR2010080904128.html?referrer=emailarticle
The key point is that the vision of people with depression appears to systematically differ from that of nondepressed people. Here is the abstract from the journal article: |Seeing Gray When Feeling Blue? Depression Can Be Measured in |the Eye of the Diseased | |Emanuel Bubl, Elena Kern, Dieter Ebert, Michael Bach, and Ludger Tebartz van Elst | |Biological Psychiatry, Volume 68, Issue 2, 15 July 2010, Pages 205-208 |doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.02.009 | |Background: Everyday language relates depressed mood to visual phenomena. |Previous studies point to a reduced sensitivity of subjective contrast perception |in depressed patients. One way to assess visual contrast perception in an |objective way at the level of the retina is to measure the pattern electroretinogram |(PERG). To find an objective correlate of reduced contrast perception, we |measured the PERG in healthy control subjects and unmedicated and medicated |patients with depression. | |Methods: Forty patients with a diagnosis of major depression (20 with and 20 |without medication) and 40 matched healthy subjects were studied. Visual PERGs |were recorded from both eyes. | |Results: Unmedicated and medicated depressed patients displayed dramatically |lower retinal contrast gain. We found a strong and significant correlation between |contrast gain and severity of depression. This marker distinguishes most patients |on a single-case basis from control subjects. A receiver operating characteristic |analysis revealed a specificity of 92.5% and a sensitivity of 77.5% for classifying |the participants correctly. | |Conclusions: Because PERG recording does not depend on subjective ratings, |this marker may be an objective correlate of depression in human beings. If |replicated, PERG may be helpful in further animal and human research in depression. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20359698 I believe that there is anecdotal evidence of differences in visual perception such as when an antidepressant seems to start working, the world appears clearer and no longer seen as through a veil. Perhaps this will be a promising area of research in the future. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4129 or send a blank email to leave-4129-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
