The brains of children who suffer clinical depression as preschoolers develop differently than those of preschoolers not affected by the disorder, a new study shows.
These children’s gray matter—tissue that connects brain cells and carries signals between those cells and is involved in seeing, hearing, memory, decision-making, and emotion—is lower in volume and thinner in the cortex, a part of the brain important in the processing of emotions.
“What is noteworthy about these findings is that we are able to see how a life experience—such as an episode of depression—can change the brain’s anatomy,” says first author Joan L. Luby, a professor of child psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis whose earlier research established that children as young as three can experience depression.