Neuropathology of depression

Professor Helen Mayberg describes a network of structures linked to depression - the cingulate, hypothalamus, brainstem, and amygdala. These are influenced by frontal and parietal cortices.

Well it turns out, unlike what we thought 30 years ago, where the focus was on the frontal lobe, that this [neuropathology of depression] is really the crosstalk between very ancient limbic or emotional centers of the brain that control drives such as the cingulate, the hypothalamus, the brainstem and the amygdala. [These structures work] in combination and their communication with thinking areas of the brain, predominately the frontal and parietal cortex. So it turns out that with imaging, we’re able to evaluate the brain in action and literally identify nodes in different parts of the brain that aren’t functioning properly. But it isn’t just any one region, it’s the combination of regions. It’s really the crosstalk between the limbic and the emotional areas almost being overactive in combination with thinking areas of the brain being underactive.