3. Brain tumors are known to directly cause depression, but could the opposite happ...

Brain tumors are known to directly cause depression, but could the opposite happen for someone that is already depressed?

The working hypothesis of depression is that is, in part, caused by a serotonin deficiency in certain brain regions. SSRIs are first-line drugs used to treat depression and they, basically, increase the amount of serotonin available in these brain regions.

Now from that, I could see how it would be possible for a brain lesion to act in the same way. For instance, a mass damaging neurons that may inhibit serotonin release or malignant transformation resulting paraneoplastic/excessive release of serotonin would function in the same way as an SSRI. I am sure other biochemical or structural changes caused by tumors could also influence mood disorders one way or another, but I am only speculating.

/r/askscience Thread
Previous
Next

Recently removed from /r/askscience

What does alcohol do to your blood sugar? I thought it spiked it? Is the Flynn effect still going? Does being sick impair the body’s ability to form memories during that time? Does having autoimmune disorder (atopic disease in my mind, but also otherwise) lead to an increased risk of immune cell cancer? What determines whether we can create a vaccine for an illness or not? Why is gluten intolerance a new phenomenon / on the rise? What's the difference in your brain between seeing an object, thinking about that object, and visualizing an object? Why are we no longer contagious even if not all influenza symptoms are gone? AskScience AMA Series: We're Experts on Influenza (aka the Flu). AUA! I’ve been browsing YouTube a lot and lately I’ve fallen into a loop of videos where uploaders ‘rescue’ sea turtles by cleaning their shells of debris and barnacles. These turtles look suspiciously like pond sliders, is that even possible? Could breathing through the mouth alter a 13 year olds face and if so how long would it take? When nucleons bind to form a nucleus, does each nucleon "retain ownership" over its quarks (is each nucleon a truly unique entity)? Or is it possible for quarks to swap from one nucleon to another? Or does it not make sense to talk so exactly about them? Do other terrestrial planets have metals like gold, silver, etc? Why does coding work? As microchips get smaller and smaller, won't single event upsets (SEU) caused by cosmic radiation get more likely? Are manufacturers putting any thought to hardening the chips against them?

More Random Comments

[Discussion] PS2 lacks emotional investment, allowing Zergs and spawn room warriors to run rampart. A hundred Oil & Gas people are being offered transfers to Tulsa. All we hear is that you're racist, Jesus freaks w/bad schools and nothing to do but sports. True or not? Trying to make a raspberry pi control an RGB LED strip. Overview for hdnnoyon Redditors who've physically fought their bullies, what happened, and what was the aftermath? Free Talk Friday, 03/06/15 Competing in 6 weeks- weight cut advice? What scale should I learn next? What is testosterone therapy like? Eye for an eye: Iran blinds acid attacker. Medics gouge out man’s eye in first known case where retribution ruling has been carried out, amid condemnation from human rights groups Why does Anime seen to change it's opening/ending theme's once or twice a season while most other media means use the same opening/ending throughout the whole series? How Capcom will bring sf5 to be one of the best competitive game amongst others big popular games like LOL or Csgo ? TIL Mark Zuckerberg said a voting mechanism that says whether posts are good or bad is 'not something that we think is good for the world' Creating macros that take data from one sheet (as an entry form), copys the data, and pastes it in another sheet (as the data base). Then, a command to clear entries. Coding Like a Girl