REAL LIFE NEWS: SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER EXPLAINED USING BRAIN SCANS
by Hazed
Some people are badly affected by the winter blues – or, to give it its proper scientific name, seasonal affective disorder (SAD). That doesn’t mean you just feel a little bit miserable, it’s going into a deep depression. Now scientists think they know why.
They think it’s to do with the way the brain controls serotonin, which makes people feel happy. As nights get longer and days get shorter, those suffering from SAD produce more of a protein that lowers available serotonin. The effect is not seen in non-SAD people.
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen used positron emission tomography brain scans to show that the levels of the serotonin transport protein (SERT) in SAD patients was much higher in winter months, which corresponds to a greater removal of serotonin in the brain.
While it’s nice to know why SAD patients feel so down in the winter, the research doesn’t do anything to help alleviate the problem, but more research might yield a cure.
