Think about your childhood – do you remember feeling incredibly guilty about small mistakes? A new study suggests that feeling of extreme guilt as a child could be an early warning sign of mental disorders developing later in life.
The important words here are “extreme guilt.” The study cited in The Atlantic indicates the area of the brain that controls those guilty feelings – the anterior insula – is linked to depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder.
But, as with all studies, let’s take a minute before jumping to any conclusions about our own parenting styles, or those styles of our parents. While psychiatrists consider a patient’s childhood and early adolescence when diagnosing a disorder, they analyze much more before coming to a final diagnosis.
We shared this article with Dr. Jeffrey Strawn, local psychiatrist, to see conclusions we could draw from the study.
“The study links a particular pattern of thinking with a specific anatomic change and subsequent increase in the likelihood of developing clinical depression,” Strawn said. “It is noteworthy that the brain structure implicated – the insula – plays a critical role in many neuropyschiatric processes, including depression and anxiety.”
While a physical link between the insula and these kinds of mood disorders exist, it will likely take more study to determine exactly how our experiences as children physically impact it.
