Jonathan Rottenberg Depression Epidemic Summary

Depression affects nearly one in five people and many are told it's because of a chemical imbalance. Doctors tell their patients that they can be cured by taking a pill and that everything in their brain will settle out. Is this really the case though?

Jonathan Rottenberg, author of "The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic" argues that depression is caused by people experiencing a low mood. Rottenberg explains how depression comes from our own and even other species evolution and how each things environment effects their mood. All people aren't just experiencing countless days in bed staring at the tv in the dark because of some deformity in their brain. These peoples environments and the conditions they live in cause them to be sad and hopeless.

"At the center of the nut is mood. Depression's defining feature is persistent low mood. The typical depressed person reports moods that are excessively dull, empty, and sad, as well as moods that lacks joy, excitment, or cheer. The centrality of mood to depression is reflected in its classification as a mood disorder." He hopes that science can be used in time to relate mood and depression. That moods are more than a summary readout of the status quo and that they "set the stage for specific emotional behaviors." People can be in a low mood and it will then affect how certain situations make them react. A person might be very jumpy or get really irritated by their friends if they go into a situation already in a bad mood. The same goes with depression. If a person is dumped by their significant other, this could easily put them in a bad mood and lead to weeks of depression and obsessing on every little thought about why the breakup happened and why weren't they good enough for the other