Apoptotic blues

"It is a storm indeed,
but a storm of murk." - William Styron

My adviser sent me an article (http://nyti.ms/HK1jIQ) about an hour ago. It outlined the history of a field that I am very intimately involved in: depression. While I leave the scientific questions that were triggered, for the development of my dissertation, I will paint a picture here of the cascade of emotions and a train of philosophical questions(that are also structured in a scientific manner) that were provoked.

The basis of the article was that much of the brain is still a mystery. Although great minds are slowly uncovering the layers, we are finding underneath them a plethora of messy details that need to be sorted. Amidst this disarray, lies the phenomenon of depression. What struck me most about this article, was the connection between neuronal growth and the maintenance of a "happy" state. It implied that emotional well-being was buried in the connections between different brain regions.

So then it makes sense why some of your memories are permanent while others still are transient. To relive a memory means to strengthen the connections associated with it. If that memory is associated with an emotional high, you assume a joyful state. However, if that memory is associated with an emotional low, you descend into a sad or depressive state. This led to several questions.

What is the statistical mode of my memories? In other words, which of my memories do I re-live the most? If I assume my theory about strengthening connections is true, then an old childhood memory probably has been relived the most because it had the most chances to be retrieved. Maybe it is the time when I won my first dance competition at age 3. Or maybe the day I dressed up as a frog for my ice-skating show. Or perhaps the time when I got stabbed in the back with a pencil by my sister. Or it must be the incident from National Park in Dubai when I spelled "red" incorrectly. Yes, it must be the last one since I now spell my colors correctly.

In contrast, I could have only re-lived an event that happened yesterday a couple times because of the limits of time. However, is it not true that our recent past is more indicative of our current state than something from decades ago? I instantly feel a sense of pride and nostalgia when someone mentions Cornell or IIT. I can't help but blush when a song comes on and the lyrics include the name of my latest crush. And I am still experiencing a happy high from the chocolate binging I indulged in last night. Perhaps the element of temporal distance (how far is t-event from t-present) should be included with the weight of frequency.

However, this model fails to include another aspect of current state. The brain lives in 3 tenses: the past, the present AND the future. In order to accurately predict the present state, one must also account for future events. Our minds are constantly preparing for the future whether that future is a few hours away (thinking about your next meal) or a few days away (thinking about your upcoming deadline). Sometimes we look forward to these events and on other occasions we just want to get through them. Our attitude towards this future event further determines our current state. I can attest to this personally, because every year, I am in a constant state of joy from Dec 24- Feb 24th and on Jan 24th, my birthday, I experience an exceptional high. For this reason, I will re-label temporal distance and call it a temporal radius to add the effect of future.

For now these parameters will suffice in helping me determine my current state. In a mathematical sense:

C-present = sum(C-past) + sum(C-future)
C(memory) = {frequency*(-1)^n}/t-radius
---- n = 0 for positive memories and 1 for negative memories
---- t-radius = absolute value (t-event - t-present)

However, this leads me into a infinite sum since I have infinite memories. This is because the reality of my brain which includes my thoughts, imaginations, dreams and experiences is much more complex than the reality of my life which only includes facts. So I return to my initial observation: emotional state is an enigma. And to make a conclusion about your current state, all you can do, is ask yourself. How do I feel right now?

I feel like I am crawling through a nebulous tunnel in a dense jungle with no cracks for a ray of sunshine. And to this my old friend Mary said, "Burn a match!"


:)