Disruption of certain brain circuits may be related to depression in soldiers with brain injuries, researchers report. The researchers conducted brain scans on 130 male soldiers who suffered mild traumatic brain injury and a control group of 52 men without brain trauma.
The scans revealed that brain-injured soldiers with moderate to severe depression had disruptions in the circuits that connect brain regions that play important roles in thinking and emotional control.
“We can link these connectivity changes in the brain to poor top-down emotional processing and greater maladaptive rumination, or worrying, in symptomatic depressed soldiers after [mild traumatic brain injury],” study author Ping-Hong Yeh.