Scientists in China and the UK scanned the brains of people with and without depression, and they found a surprising pattern in nearly all of the depressed people: Their brain activity was out of sync in three regions collectively known as the “hate circuit” — so called because in previous experiments they have been shown to light up when people look at photographs of someone they can’t stand.

It’s as if the brains of depressed people hate incorrectly. The brain disruptions the researchers observed could be a sign that people with depression have an impaired ability to cope with — and learn from — social situations in which they feel hate, Feng says. This may explain why they often turn emotions such as hatred and anger inward, instead of handling them in more constructive ways, he adds.

The study, which was published Tuesday in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, is the first to connect disruptions in the hate circuit to depression, and the findings may help doctors understand why depressed people react the way they do to certain circumstances, says Madhkar Trivedi, M.D., director of the mood disorders program and clinic at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/04/health/depressed-brains-hate-differently/index.html?hpt=hp_t2