Date of this Version
12-1-2010
Document Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Depression is one of the major contributors to the Total Disease Burden and afflicts about one-sixth of Western populations. One of the most effective treatments for depression focuses upon analysis of causal chains in overt behaviour, but does not include brain-related phenomena as steps along these causal pathways. Recent research findings regarding the neurobiological concomitants of depressive behaviour suggest a sequence of structural and functional alterations to the brain which may also produce a beneficial outcome for the depressed individual--that of adaptive withdrawal from uncontrollable aversive stressors. Linking these brain-based explanations to models of observable contingencies for depressive behaviour can provide a comprehensive explanation of how depressive behaviour occurs and why it persists in many patients.
This document has been peer reviewed.
Publication Details
Published Version.
Sharpley, C.F. & Bitsika, V. (2010). Joining the dots: Neurobiological links in a functional analysis of depression. Behavioral and brain functions, 6:73.
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2010 HERDC submission. FoR Code: 170100
© Copyright Sharpley and Bitsika, 2010; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.