Depression

One of the symptoms of depression is suicide, or attempts at suicide. A classic case is that of the writer, Sylvia Plath. In 1963 her autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, was published. It tells the story of a lady writer's descent into madness.
Another writer that committed suicide was Ernest Hemingway.

Shown here is the cover of Plath's only novel. The cover is from Alibris.

Shown here is a neuron. The clipart is from the California State educational website. The neurons are abnormal in depression.

Shown here is dopamine as visualized by the Wikipedia free encyclopedia website. Dopamine has been suspected in both schizophrenia and depression. Dopamine produces stress-related chemicals such as norepinephrine and epinephrine.

Shown here is the Wikipedia stick model of tryptophan. There are tryptophan theories of depression (as well as schizophrenia). A British group, Wood et al, reported an increased uptake of tryptophan by platelets in depression. This paper was largely ignored, except by this author (Olson). The British finding fits with my own theories.

Kraepelin was so influencial in psychiatry that an entire website has been devoted to him. The site is www.kraepelin.org, and it was the source for this photo. Kraepelin was Alzheimer's boss, and named the disease after him.

This book, whose cover is from Alibris, was first published in the 17th century. At that time depression was called "melancholy".

Shown here is a synapse, again from the California State website. The molecules crossing the synapse are neurotransmitters. One neurotransmitter, and perhaps more, is thought to be abnormal in depression, as is also the case in schizophrenia. In schizophrenia dopamine produces an abnormal metabolite called DMPEA. There are serotonin theories of depression, but there are also catecholamine theories.

Again I used the California State website because it is so good and so relevant. This is a more elaborate view of a synapse showing the mitochondria.

Again the clipart is from California State. The various types of neurotransmitters are shown. They are stored in vesicles (#3 above).

This photo of Dr. Emil Kraepelin was taken from the Wikipedia site, which is a free international encyclopedia. The German psychiatrist classified mental diseases into "dementia praecox", now called "schizophrenia", manic-depressive psychosis, and "paraphrenia", now called senile psychois. This classification has largely survived today except that many different types of senile psychosis (including Alzheimer's disease, Pick's disease, etc.) have been discovered.