Brain scans of 40000 people revealed 3 types of problems are common in insomnia, anxiety and depression patients

There are three primary types of problems in the brains of insomnia, depression, and anxiety sufferers. This has emerged in a new study that has come out in the journal Nature Mental Health. According to scientists, this can provide new lines of treatment for the patients because the current treatments are not fully effective,e and the symptoms tend to recur.

One of these three abnormalities is the minute size of the thalamus. It is the region of the brain that deals with attention and memory, and the lack of it causes symptoms such as distraction and forgetfulness. The two other abnormalities are poor connectivity between various areas of the brain. It influences the information exchange between areas of the brain. A decreased area of the outer part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex influences the ability to remember and language skills. Insomnia, that is, insomnia or frequent disruption of existing sleep patterns, is already known to have a relationship to mental diseases like anxiety and depression. This study goes a step forward to prove the connection using evidence of the brain.

The research team analyzed brain scans of more than 40,000 people from the UK Biobank database. They tried to find out what the similarities and differences are between these mental diseases. The researchers concluded that the small area of ​​the cerebral cortex, the small size of the thalamus, and weak connectivity between brain parts, all these symptoms are associated with the severity of all three mental illnesses. He also said that symptoms that are found separately only in insomnia, anxiety, or depression are often associated with several parts of the same amygdala-hippocampus-middle prefrontal cortex circuit. This shows how deeply these diseases are connected and can provide new directions for further research and treatment.

Researcher Elleke Tissink of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands says that some brain abnormalities are common in all three diseases, but some are seen only in a particular disease. For example, the severity of insomnia is associated with a smaller size in those brain parts that are associated with reward and pleasure. Tissink said that the severity of depression is associated with thinning of the outer layer of the brain, especially in those parts that control language and emotion. This can explain why people suffering from depression have difficulty expressing or controlling their emotions.

Anxiety becomes more severe when the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes fear and danger-related emotions, does not respond properly. According to Tissink, the transmission of messages between parts of the brain through chemicals such as dopamine, glutamate, and histamine also becomes weak. However, these affected parts may appear to be different.