ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a positive perspective on the potential of neuroscientific research and its capacity to inform our understanding of mental disorders. It deals with the disorder that is most intensively investigated—depression. Four large brain areas have been studied particularly intensively with regard to their involvement in depressive disorders. There are: the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the anterior cingulate cortex, the hippocampus and the amygdala. The chapter reviews the function of each of these brain areas and discusses how each of them is involved in depressive functioning. According to E. K. Miller and S. E. Cohen’s integrative theory of the PFC, one of its most important functions is the representation of goals and the means for their realization. In patients with major depression, the volume of hippocampus is reduced by 8% to 19%. This is a well-established finding. The volume reduction in the hippocampus can result from a loss in neurons or glia cells as a consequence of elevated Cortisol levels.
