Depression affects visual perception

Researchers in psychiatry and psychology at the University of Helsinki investigated the effects of depression on visual perception. The study confirmed that the visual information processing ability of depression patients has changed, and this phenomenon is likely to be related to the information processing ability of the cerebral cortex. The research was published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience.

In this study, two visual tests were used to compare the visual information processing of depression patients with the visual processing of a control group. In the perception test, the subjects compared the brightness and contrast of simple patterns.

Viljami Salmela, a researcher at the Finnish Academy of Sciences, said: "It is surprising that the contrast of the displayed image for depressed patients is different from that of non-depressed patients."

Compared with patients who have not been diagnosed with depression, patients with depression perceive weaker visual hallucinations and therefore have slightly stronger contrast.

Salmela explained: "In non-depressive patients, the contrast is suppressed by about 20%, while the corresponding figure for depressed patients is about 5%."

In order to deepen the understanding of the onset of these diseases and how to develop effective treatments, it is important to identify the changes in brain function of underlying mental diseases.

This is why researchers believe that it is necessary to conduct further research on the changes in the way the brain processes visual information caused by depression.

Salmela said: "Assessing and further development of the usability of perception testing will be beneficial because it is both a research method and a potential method for identifying patient information processing disorders."

For example, perceptual testing can be used as an auxiliary tool when evaluating the effects of various therapies that are performed as treatment progresses.

Salmela pointed out: "However, because the observed differences are small and are shown when comparing groups, it is not possible to test visual perception to identify depression."