Chemical and mechanical activity

[Deb12345]

Hello again,

Not sure if anyone knows the answer to this but what is the difference between Chemical, Psychological and Mechanical activity / depression? Is mechanical activity the reason why people have epilepsy and therefore if they have depression too, it is also likely to be mechanical? I am just very interested in this subject, so if anyone can reflect some light on this (maybe a website to look at or examples), would be fantastic. I have found out since I have been diagnosed with epilepsy the information I have found out about the brain is very fascinating.

Yippee, I've had my 5 day probes taken off today so will hopefully find out the results soon. I hope I don't have to wait until my next appointment which isn't until the 1st April 2010. It took me and Mom 2 and a quarter hours to get the glue out of my hair. Crazy but at least I am freeeeeeeee! lol

I hope you have all enjoyed this week.
Best Wishes
Debbie

[Nakamova]

I'm not familiar with "Mechanical Depression" (maybe it denotes depression arising from a structural, rather than chemical malfunction in the brain?), but I would assume that all three varieties overlap. For instance, chemical or internal depression -- i.e. an imbalance in the dopamine/serotonin system -- would also have to play a role in psychological depression (i.e. one apparently related to external stressors). Post-partum depression seems to straddle both. Since the brain is so plastic and can be changed from both the inside out and the outside in, I think it might be hard to decide what causes what, or which came first.

With epilepsy, there isn't a definitive answer as to it's connection to depression, it probably varies quite a bot from person to person. In some cases epielpsy seems to cause depression because of a specific area of the brain that's affected by seizing. In other cases depression and epilepsy might be different manifestations of the same underlying structural abnormality, and yet another possibility is that the depression results from long-term exposure to the medications and/or external stresses that accompany epilepsy. Interestingly enough, electroshock therapy -- which has helped many people with depression -- is essentially a controlled seizure.

Don't know if this helps at all. I'm sure others will chime in with more relevant info.
Congrats on getting the probes (and the glue!) out. I hope you can have a relaxing weekend.

[epileric]

I've never heard of epilepsy being divided into those categories but here's the online definition of those words from the medical dictionary (not that different from the non-medical dictionary)

http://medical-dictionary.tfd.com/mechanical

http://medical-dictionary.tfd.com/chemical

http://medical-dictionary.tfd.com/psychological

[Deb12345]

Thank you both for your replies.