Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) is located inside the brain in the hypothalamus. This part of the brain is attributed to regulating hunger, thirst, sex drive and other pleasurable activities.

A recent study in mice seems to connect this region of the brain to how the brain and body handle stress. One of the interesting aspects of this study is how stimulation and lack of stimulation appears to affect mood, specifically “lack of pleasurable feelings”.

If you’ve been treated for depression but your symptoms haven’t improved, you may have treatment-resistant depression. A recent study published in JAMA documented a 7.5% group of patients receiving treatment for depression to be classified as “treatment resistant”.

What this means for these patients is one or more of the following:

medication isn’t helpful

therapy takes longer or doesn’t appear to change symptoms

higher use of additional medical support such as hospital care, sick days, etc.

In a recent longitudinal study, researchers found a high correlation between behavioral health interventions and protecting women with prenatal depression from developing postnatal depression. For those of us in the mental and behavioral health field, this provides further evidence that the skills we teach can be helpful even up to 8 years after learning the skills!

Even short term therapy can help someone learn skills to manage and reduce their symptoms of depression, which may be exacerbated during pregnancy. This is especially true for women of color and women with lower incomes, according to this study.