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Thalamus Size Study Challenged
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Added: 07/06/2004
Type: Summary
Viewed: 1555 time(s)
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Thalamus Size Study Challenged
From The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, the study of: "postmortem brains of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) showed a 31 percent greater than average number of nerve cells in the portion of the thalamus involved with emotional regulation." [ref1
Different parts of the brain have been assigned different tasks and functions based upon observational deductions of relevant reference actions. This is no different than noticing the road in front of your house seems to be the 'food distribution center' as it constantly is crossed by grocery trucks.
The Thalamus is the center of long-term memory. It isn't very large, compared to short-term memory and it does not have to be. It is functioning far slower and therefore takes up less room. Neurons are made as neurons are needed to extend the pathway of a specific input receptor. When a person is long-term dominant (controlled by past more than present) more neurons will be present as the area of long-term memory is being used more often and receiving higher signals, which makes neuron creation more plentiful.
"Researchers also discovered that this portion of the thalamus is physically larger than normal in people with MDD. Located in the center of the brain, the thalamus is involved with many different brain functions, including relaying information from other parts of the brain to the cerebral cortex." [ref1
The cerebral cortex is where short-term memory is. It is far larger as it is working far faster. The thalamus does not 'relay' anything. It sends its fluid data (long-term memories) to short-term memory to be evaluated and returned to long-term memory (which is how you remember you have a sense of self.)
Enter the learned scientists: "Dr. Dwight German, professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern," said "This supports the hypothesis that structural abnormalities in the brain are responsible for depression". Whoa there cowboy. Back up. Reverse that. Depression is responsible for structural abnormalities. Depressed people are living in their memory, over and over again and are doing so as short-term memory is not in control therefore sending signals that are far too large for long-term memory to maintain at a 'normal' size. The hypothesis of 'size is the cause' is not only wrong, it is severly wrong.
German continued: "Often people don't understand why mentally ill people behave in odd ways. They may think they have a weak will or were brought up in some unusual way. But if their brains are different, they're going to behave differently. Depression is an emotional disorder. So it makes sense that the part of the brain that is involved in emotional regulation is physically different." [ref1
No it does not. It makes sense that the part of the brain involved in emotional reactions, (if emotions were regulated at all, there would be no depression) would be overworked as the part of the brain involved in rational pro-actions is simply not in control of the process.
German digs deeper: "The thalamus is often referred to as the secretary of the cerebral cortex - the part of the brain that controls all kinds of important functions such as seeing, talking, moving, thinking and memory. Most everything that goes into the cortex has to go through the thalamus first." [ref1
Should have held on to the reigns a couple of paragraphs ago: the connection between cortex and thalamus is one of information exchange. Receptor inputs are compared to thalamus content, the result is transmitted (not relayed) to the cortex where it has a myriad array of options for activity. The data can simply be transferred back to the thalamus and stored without reference to 'now' or it can, in varying degrees of 'now' be tempered with 'now'. Depressed people are not living in 'now'. 'Then' is always the cause of expected 'future' events and 'now' is only the condition of 'when' not 'what' to a severely depressed person.
The functions listed, "seeing, talking, moving, thinking and memory" are, for the most part, long-term functions. One does not 'contemplate to see, or talk or move or retrieve memory'. Thinking is completely different than German could cope with at this point, so we'll leave that to another useless scientific study to defend.
German continued: "The thalamus also contains cells that are not involved with emotion. Our studies found these portions of the thalamus to be perfectly normal. But the ones that are involved in emotion are the ones that were abnormal." [ref
Might there be just a small, very insignificant chance that long-term memory stores both visual and aural pathways, and smell and taste and pressure and temperature and texture? Of course there is. The areas of the thalamus not affected by overworked pathways are the ones that will not have the extra cell count.
In the press release provided by the University [ref1 a rather silly deduction is attempted: "Researchers also looked at the effect of antidepressant medications on the number of nerve cells and found no significant difference among any of the subject groups - whether they had taken antidepressants or not - reinforcing the belief that abnormalities in brain development are responsible for depression." [ref1
Now that is indeed downright silly. Anti-depressants do not work on neurons, they work on synapses. People do not start taking anti-depressants until the depression becomes noticable and oft' times not until the depression has set in enough to cause an overgrowth of pathway processing (whether it is visual or aural pathways). By then, the thalamus has extended out for long-term memory values that are in excess of 'normal. Anti-depressants just dampen the transmission of synapse function. They do absolutely nothing to the values stored in the memory before their use. In fact, the values that are 'depressed' or 'increased' themselves do not match the values that are present in long-term memory, so when the patient withdraws from the medication, relapse may occur in varying degrees of angry intensity.
"Major depression is characterized by a depressed mood and lack of interest or pleasure in normal activities for a prolonged period of time, while bipolar disease is distinguished by alternating periods of extreme mania or elevated mood swings, and severe depression. Schizophrenia often results in psychotic episodes of hallucinations and delusions and a lack of perception of reality." [ref1
All are symptoms of the same condition. Long-term memory is in control of the brain, as short-term memory is not in control of the brain. Having nice clinical terms for observed conditions has turned into observed conditions determining their own causes by size, location or the flavor of the month club tool (fMRI is hot this month we hear!)
"Other researchers involved in the study were Dr. Umar Yazdani, a postdoctoral researcher in psychiatry from UT Southwestern, and Drs. Keith A. Young, Leigh A. Holcomb and Paul B. Hicks from Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, Texas AM University System Health Science Center and Scott & White Hospital in Temple." [ref1
"The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health; the Veterans Administration; the Scott, Sherwood and Brindley Foundation, and the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation." [ref1
It is nice to know that the functions depicted in the book, The Brain Is A Wonderful Thing have once again found evidence of truth in a clinical study. It is sad that the state of the science today is such that deductions are made based on observations without one shred of logic evaluating what is being observed, just that is it observed.
It is a shame the "National Institutes of Health; the Veterans Administration; the Scott, Sherwood and Brindley Foundation, and the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation," have spent money to do a great thing and wound up with fictional assumptions to press forward with and ruin more studies.
References: [ref1 http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/505851/
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