Itâ??s not that depressed people canâ??t feel good, itâ??s that they canâ??t hang on to that feeling, a new study claims. The novel notion upends previous beliefs that depressed people donâ??t even start out with positive emotions, and that they have no or little response in the areas of the brain related to good feelings.
“This tells us that a consideration of positive emotion is as important, if not more important, in understanding depression,” said Richard Davidson, senior author of a study appearing online Dec. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.