Aloneliness

I don't think many people believe it's a hormonal balance. Your likely thinking of serotonin and the serotonin theory of depression, that was disproven by psychologists and neurologists yet is still believed by many normal people. Serotonin isn't a hormone, but a lot of people understandably get that mixed up. But that doesn't mean depression isn't biological, it absolutely is and there's more evidence now for that than there ever was in the past. There's tonsss of brain structure abnormalities associated with depression like an **atrophied hippocampus**. And in older adults **white matter lesions**, especially in vascular depression. What I dont understand is the armchair psychology in these comments and in general around depression. You have HUNDREDS of unique functional areas in the brain, some are associated with mood, vision, motivation, sleep, movement etc etc. Each part can become damaged or disrupted for a wide variety of reasons. Vision part of your brain gets messed up? Could go blind without any physical damage to the eye. Movement part of your brain gets messed up? parkinsons or dystonia or some other movement related disorder. Sleep area of brain messed up? sleep phase disorder, insomnia, narcolepsy. Memory area of brain? dementia, alzheimers, amnesia... Are there not mood area of your brain? It seems soooo simple and easy to understand. The mood and motivation areas of your brain ARE NOT FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER PART OF YOUR BRAIN. There is a literal physical piece of flesh in your brain that is responsible for your mood. Why is it so hard to believe that piece of flesh can get damaged or dysfunctional? It can happen to EVERY other part of your body. The physical differences in the brain that cause and are caused by depression actually sound on paper a lot scarier than just a "hormone imbalance". Things like an atrophied hippocampus, overactive amygdala, atrophied PFC, white matter lesions, etc, etc, all sound a lot scarier and more serious than just a hormone imbalance lol. Different brain structure abnormalities are associated with different presentations/types of depression as well, this is a good read. And shows how different types of brain structure abnormalities associated with depression affect treatment response. [https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/06/depression-biotypes.html](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/06/depression-biotypes.html) How would that ever be possible if depression was just a willpower or action thing? It's true nobody is going to fix their depression without willpower and the actual WANT and MOTIVATION to get better. Your long term psychological state and frame of mind affects treatment outcomes a lot. Most of the time you need to take control of your life to fix your depression but that's not always the case. Depression is **most often caused by a large combination of factors, both biological and controllable.** It's not purely psychological. And it's rarer, but sometimes it 1000% can be almost entirely biological. Most animals can get depression, it's not a uniquely human thing it's literally just a rare side effect of having a brain.