Thaindian News

Washington, June 3 (IANS) Callie seems to be a normal, if quiet, five-year-old girl. But when faced with a toy that blows large soap bubbles - something that makes tiny tots squeal and leap with delight - she is least interested in the activity.

When offered dolls or other toys, she is equally unmoved. When groups of children congregate to play, Callie does not join them. Even at home, she is quiet and withdrawn.

While Callie’s mother explains this lack of interest in play as simple “shyness,” researchers have now discovered that children as young as three years can meet the clinical criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD).

What’s more, they demonstrate patterns of brain activation very similar to those seen in adults diagnosed with the disorder, reports the Journal of Affective Disorder.

Joan Luby, director of the early emotional development program at Washington University in St. Louis, has been studying pre-school depression for almost two decades.

Developmental psychologists have argued that young children did not have the emotional or cognitive competence to experience depression, but Luby’s clinical experience contradicted the party line, according to a Washington statement.

“Sadness and irritability can occur at any age from infancy to very old age. But symptoms like anhedonia were thought to be adult problems because it’s often talked about as decreased libido,” says Luby.

“That, obviously, doesn’t occur in young children. But when you developmentally translate it to an absence of joyfulness, especially when joyfulness is the dominant mood state of young children, you have a pretty robust clinical marker.”

Luby and colleagues scanned a group of depressed children with an average age of 4.5 years while they viewed faces with different expressions of emotion.

The group found that there was a significant correlation between the severity of the depression and increased activity in the right amygdala (a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion). The same pattern of activity was viewed in adults with depression.

“There is something about the experience of depression in very early childhood that seems to leave an enduring mark on the brain-these kids are more likely to be depressed as adults, too,” she says.