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Depression isn’t just being sad. It is often a chronic condition and it sometimes claims the lives of the people that it affects. Many people with depression struggle with going to seek help but those that do often find that the treatment may not work for them. Some of the treatment for chronic depression are therapy and medication. Some people with a severe variant of the condition may also choose electroshock therapy after being assessed by their neurologist and psychiatrist. Unfortunately, there is still a small subset of people that do not respond to even this treatment.

It is now more important than ever to understand how depression works.

People who are depressed often have a ventromedial cortex that is up to 40% smaller than those without depression. It’s no surprise, really. The ventromedial cortex is a bit like an emotional control system and when someone is suffering from chronic depression, it becomes nearly inactive during the depressive phase and hyperactive during the manic phase. There are other parts of the brain that both decrease and increase in activity when someone is suffering from depression.

Since scientists have a better understanding of how depression work, there are some new methods to treat it being developed.

According to an article by CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a researcher at Emery University is looking for a way to help those patients that don’t seem to respond to the treatment that is available to them. Dr. Helen Mayberg has worked on mapping the depression circuit and noticed patterns that indicated that there is a small part of the brain. They called this Area 25. Dr. Mayberg noted that when area 25 turned up, it was correlated with how sad someone was. At the same time, while area 25 turned down, the rest of the brain turned down, and that indicated that people would find it much more difficult to pay attention and do other tasks.

What is the new treatment?

Electrodes get implanted in the patient’s brain. These electrodes get power from a battery pack that is also installed under the patient’s skin. A patient doesn’t need to be put to sleep for the surgery because a brain cannot feel pain – after all, it has no nerve endings. After that, an electrical current is sent to the brain. Over 75% of the patients Dr. Helen Mayberg has treated have gotten and remain better, with one caveat. If the battery under their skin runs out, the depression returns.

It’s still early days, but this study could indicate how we are going to deal with treating people who suffer from this condition in the future.

You wake up in the morning. You stretch and yawn. You are tired at work, so you yawn. You are scratching your ear and yawn. You are working on your research project and yawn. You are watching a movie where someone yawns, so you yawn. You can’t escape yawning. You do it all the time. In fact, if you are an impressionable person, you may have just done it right then. I know just thinking about yawning makes me want to yawn. When having an important conversation, you may feel like yawning – or, horror, in a job interview. It’s incredibly difficult to suppress a yawn. Don’t feel bad, though, everyone does it.

Why? Why do you yawn?

There are lots of situations in which you feel like yawning, but what exactly is it doing to your body? Why do you have to yawn when someone next to you yawns on the bus?

Well, we are still not that sure. Yawning is contagious and we do it all the time, which is why some scientists think it may have been a primitive form of communication between each other.

Another theory is that yawning helps cool the brain. A study may indicate that people who are hot tend to yawn a lot more than those who aren’t. In the study, 48% of the subjects yawned, but when they held a cold compress over their head, only 9% did. However, the study did not go on to measure the actual temperature of the brain. For that reason, the cooling down theory is still a big question mark in the scientific community.

As far as why we yawn, we are still not sure. There are lots of theories, but not one that has been proven close to conclusive yet.

Scientists are still performing studies and reading through the literature – doubtlessly holding back a couple of yawns themselves.

There is some science being done about the color red. It isn’t just the color of pretty backless cocktail dresses, fast cars or satin bed sheets. Red isn’t just a seductive color, it is also a manipulative color, according to an article by David Robson on the BBC Future site.

Red may have been seen as a warning color by our ancestors.

After all, red is the color of our blood. The color red may still have a bit of an influence on our moods, desires and the way we act. That’s why there is a new branch of psychology that is still in its infancy, called color psychology. Of course not all of their research is focused on the color red, but it certainly stands out among other colors. After all, humans are some of the only mammals that can distinguish between the color red and the color green, for instance.

Studies have shown that competitors wearing red tend to win more than those who are wearing blue. Scientists aren’t exactly sure whether this is because red is a more dominant color and the person wearing it has an increased heart rate and is more motivated or if they intimidated the opposition. Competitors who wore the color red were usually favored by professional referees, too.

Both men and women are seen as more attractive when they are wearing red, but it may also come off as aggressive, depending on the shade of red.

What we need to keep in mind is that the science is still very young. There is an indication that red could make a difference, but we are still not entirely sure how – or even what that difference is. That is one of the reasons we are so far away from being able to paint our office in productive colors, though wearing a red tie to a job interview would certainly not hurt.

Insomnia is not just a problem that happens at night. According to researchers, insomnia is tied to different brain activities – and those that suffer from this sleeping difficulty may also have different brain activity at all times of the day.

In fact, according to Rachel E. Salas, M.D insomnia is not a nighttime disorder at all, rather it is a 24-hour a day condition. According to the results of the study, people who have insomnia tend to have more alert. Originally, Salas thought that people who sleep soundly would have more alert brains with more plasticity, but it turns out that she was wrong.

People with insomnia have a motor cortex that is more adaptable to change than those who sleep well. The neurons in the same region of the brain were more excited with those with chronic insomnia than with those who didn’t have it.

This could mean that people who have insomnia are in a heightened state of awareness and this could be what interferes with their sleep.

Your overactive brain may be hyper aroused and you could find that you are as alert at four in the morning as you are at four in the afternoon.

So what came first?

Researchers are still not sure. The study wasn’t designed to find that out, so we are still not sure whether people who suffer from chronic insomnia have more active brains or if not getting enough sleep will leave you in a state of hyperarousal. The study did show that if you give both good sleepers and insomniacs an easy task, they will perform at approximately the same level. However, when they are presented with more complex tasks, insomniacs have a harder time completing with them.

There are different types of insomnia and they are usually tied to different things. The best way to treat it is by taking care of any underlying problems and practicing good sleep hygiene. If chronic insomnia is bothering you, you should place a call to the doctor.