Depression - An evolutionary advantage?

[GOD]

Consider this article, I have to critique it simply because it is in my opinion so poorly written and bereft of any logical deductive reasoning...

There are some good comments to the article on the site and these will be included as well...

Depression's Evolutionary Roots: Scientific American

Firstly,

"There is another possibility: that, in most instances, depression should not be thought of as a disorder at all. In an article recently published in Psychological Review, we argue that depression is in fact an adaptation, a state of mind which brings real costs, but also brings real benefits".

Ok, let's kick this game off.

Firstly, for some reason "all" scientists seem to believe that everything is simple cause and effect. "We need food, we get hungry". "We are depressed, we are unhappy". Have they for one moment considered that there is a higher layer than simple cause and effect? It is one of a pathway (a map or guiding set) of overarching instructions?

For instance, it is winter; I suffer from say SAD (Seasonal affective disorder)
Seasonal affective disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia it means I stay closer to my clan and helps me survive the winter months. It is summer I am happier I need my clan less. As another analogy, I stand by a cliff, I suffer vertigo, my mind is telling me my life is in danger.

Depression and general unhappiness comes in many forms and for many reasons, we lump it all together because it is emotional even though the causes different. I will say more as we go through this...

"When scientists have compared the composition of the functional part rat 5HT1A receptor to that of humans, it is 99 percent similar, which suggests that it is so important that natural selection has preserved it. The ability to “turn on” depression would seem to be important, then, not an accident."

You don't need to know about 5HT1A to know that it is not an accident as depression has genetic predisposition. It runs in families.

The fact that depression exists and that it affects large numbers of people (and women more) shows that it is not positively discriminated to such an extent that it exited from the gene pool. Moreover, following my overarching theory it would make good biological sense for the bearers of children to bound more closely to the clan via depression, in fact it would likely make that clan more cohesive ensuring better reproductive success. Depression = greater loyalty.

"Depressed people often have trouble performing everyday activities, they can’t concentrate on their work, they tend to socially isolate themselves, they are lethargic, and they often lose the ability to take pleasure from such activities such as eating and ***. Some can plunge into severe, lengthy, and even life-threatening bouts of depression."

Obviously there is a continuum to any trait, too much depression and people can exit themselves from the gene pool.

"So what could be so useful about depression? Depressed people often think intensely about their problems. These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time."

Personally I think this is merging two traits and then believing they are intertwined rather than being potentially mutually exclusive. As an example assume that depression is positively correlated with introversion (and helps creates it) and lets say woman X suffers from depression, and depression has a genetic propensity. Let's say Man X is analytical and introverted.

So, the likelihood is that introversion attracts and the offspring become introverted analytical and depressive, which all reinforce each other as traits. It is like the discussion I have made on intraversion (being introversion sought for time to think) with other instances of introversion being based on emotional factors such as shyness and depression etc. Moreover, depression, introversion and analytical groupings may occur due to be excluded from extroverts.

Depression aligning itself with Analytical traits could be thought of as like Intelligence and Beauty aligning itself over time. I will leave it to you to decide which of these traits is sought by the respective sexes.

"For instance, in some of our research, we have found evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test."

A complex problem does not make you depressed, but being depressed might make you focus more on anything in your close proximity more. Although as a positive evolutionary reproductive argument it sounds highly tenuous especially when statements such as "they can’t concentrate on their work" and others are made in exactly the same article.

Remember, I am saying that Analytical and depression are traits that pool together from introversion and positively reinforce each other. Being depressed as a single trait does not confer intellectual benefits.

"These important processes allow depressive rumination to continue uninterrupted with minimal neuronal damage, which may explain why the 5HT1A receptor is so evolutionarily important."

This is still the chicken and the egg argument. This line of reasoning therefore cannot explain aspects such as SAD; it cannot explain the propensity of depressives to be more tightly bonded and so forth. I'd even go further and say that on the whole depressives might actually be less intelligent than non depressives as there are so many negative traits that it most likely holds them back. This does not however contradict my statement that Analytical (Intelligence) and depression can be positively reinforcing, just that it likely leads to a greater dispersion of "intelligence" across the population of depressives relative to non depressives.

"But is there any evidence that depression is useful in analyzing complex problems? For one thing, if depressive rumination were harmful, as most clinicians and researchers assume, then bouts of depression should be slower to resolve when people are given interventions that encourage rumination, such as having them write about their strongest thoughts and feelings. However, the opposite appears to be true. Severalstudieshave found that expressive writing promotes quicker resolution of depression, and they suggest that this is because depressed people gain insight into their problems."

Writing about a negative experience or depression is not rumination! It is the communication outwardly (externalisation) of the negative condition, in effect it has all the hallmarks of "connecting to the rest of the group/clan" by communicating and sharing a problem. As they say "A problem shared is a problem halved". Yes, depressives get over depression more easily by sharing with others (or as a surrogate externalising the rumination). This is the whole basis for the bonding and group cohesiveness.

" Various studies have found that people in depressed mood states are better at solving social dilemmas. Yet these would seem to have been precisely the kind of problems difficult enough to require analysis and important enough to drive the evolution of such a costly emotion. Consider a woman with young children who discovers her husband is having an affair. Is the wife’s best strategy to ignore it, or force him to choose between her and the other woman, and risk abandonment? Laboratory experiments indicate that depressed people are better at solving social dilemmas by better analysis of the costs and benefits of the different options that they might take."

Group cohesiveness, bonding, social benefits etc as indicated earlier.

"But depression is nature’s way of telling you that you’ve got complex social problems that the mind is intent on solving. Therapies should try to encourage depressive rumination rather than try to stop it, and they should focus on trying to help people solve the problems that trigger their bouts of depression. (There are several effective therapies that focus on just this.) It is also essential, in instances where there is resistance to discussing ruminations, that the therapist try to identify and dismantle those barriers."

Any psychiatrist will tell you that depression can also be a chemical imbalance condition and not just an environmental aspect. Therapies should try to get the patient to externalise and preferably share what they believe is making them "unhappy".

[GOD]

Depression - An evolutionary advantage? – Part 2
(Or: Did we swing down from the trees because we were depressed?)

In the last article I possibly didn’t articulate the concept of a Meta type basis for “depression” as well as I could have. So, I will try to elaborate further now. Depression does not need to be a straight forward cause and effect type of “feeling” it could quite easily be a meta guiding type of feeling that has no answer only that the subject searches for something it cannot really find to redress that feeling. “The grass is always greener on the other side” is a perfect analogy.

Another aspect has also come to light since the last article, which is one of depression creating introversion and the effects it has. Consider being depressed and withdrawing from the clan, rather than becoming more extroverted to disperse the feeling (i.e. share, bond, comfort etc) the subject becomes increasingly separated from the clan and starts to believe that if it is not part of the clan then elsewhere might be a better option - as the clan provides no reprieve from the feeling. (Depression > Introversion > Withdrawal > Self reliance > Relocation)

In effect the preceding two paragraphs set the scene and the process whereby clans can separate with members striking out on their own. Obviously, one could say, it’s more likely to occur with competition for resources and power struggles etc within the clan; but is this more powerful than depression as a process? Is trying to find happiness a more powerful force than improving it?

On another point, depressive tendencies have other evolutionary advantages and survival is a key one. Consider depressed people (and as it has genetic tendencies then consider a depressed clan/tribe) whom do as much as possible to reduce “depression”; one of the aspects to depression being hyper sensitivity (Awareness) of the environment and mitigation of contingent risk. (Depression > Introversion > Self reliance). (Remember a clan of depressives is going to act differently than 1 depressive in a clan of non depressives, think of power control and coordinating group orientation of thought)

So the depressives build fortifications, live on high ground; become regimented in their understanding and control of crops/harvests. In doing so they need to think, and think a lot. They prepare for the future, the safer they are the less depressed they feel. (They are still depressed, but Risk and Fear just increase it to intolerable levels).

So, it’s more than conceivable that we swung down from the trees not to satiate our need for greater materialism, but because we were simply unhappy, needing to redress it somehow, anyhow, but search we must… and during that search be aware of the dangers it entails.