Raf

This is an interesting news from 12 days ago. As expected certain parts of the brain shrink when patients are suffering from depression. What is unexpected is that after depressions these parts naturally regrow: http://www.euronews.com/2012/01/18/depression-researchers-pinpoint-brain-anomaly/

Thank you Stef, I watched the video. My understanding is that the changes are functional and detectable via a functional MRI. These are not physical changes (the mass of the brain does not change), but functional. Does anyone have evidence that a non-drug therapy leads to a physical / structural change (certain parts / components of brain grow or recess as a result of a sucessful therapy, e.g. hipocampus grows or amygdalia contract)? Would this even be possible through e.g. neurogenesis? Has someone made any scientific research on this that you are aware of?

Can someone xplain the following to me: I understand that people who are addicted to substances got their brains damged in early years as a result of adverse childhood experiences. They take intake substances (tobacco, alkohol) in order to self-medicate their physically damged brains (not enough serotonine or too much serotonine or too many or too few receptors - it realy doesn't matter at the moment). My question is, what happens after such a person quits his / her habbit due to e.g. group therapy. Am I correct to assume that this person's brain still remains physically damaged after such a therapy? Or the therapy leads to a phisical healing of the brain? Am I missing something?