Worrying, disheartening study shows depression, stress shrinks brains

Try not to let this news stress or depress you, but according to a study by a team at Yale, chronic stress and severe depression can effectively shrink your brain. The researchers, who examined the brain tissue of people who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) found that the formation of connections between their brain cells had been impaired by a protein which was produced as a result of mental illnesses. This had the effect of making sufferers forgetful, less "with it" and less able to emote normally, which is why depressed people can appear to lack empathy and be kinda slow on the uptake. A serious side-effect that makes depression all the more challenging to fight. [Source]

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