A Sad State of Cognitive Affairs

Check out this week’s leading cognitive science news item:

According to the Los Angeles Times, “researchers have long noted that most depressives have a wide range of other cognitive problems: They often have trouble concentrating, they frequently fail to pick up on social cues - such as facial expressions - that don’t conform with their negative thoughts, and their memories sometimes seem full of holes.”

The study conducted by researchers at Columbia University also determined that on average, people with a family history of depression appear to have brains that are 28 percent thinner in the right cortex (the brain’s outermost layer) than those individuals with no known family history of the disease. That cortical thinning, claim the researchers, was on a scale similar to that seen in Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia patients.

“These are really impressive anatomical differences,” says Dr. Bradley Peterson, study’s lead author. However, he added that the greater the anatomical differences among patients, on average, the more severe were their symptoms of cognitive impairment.

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Read the entire LA Times article.