Researchers have found depression is linked to areas of the brain shrinking in size but when depression is paired with anxiety one area of the brain becomes significantly larger. A new study looked at more than 10,000 people to find the effects of depression and anxiety on brain volume. The study shows depression has a pronounced impact on the hippocampus, the part of the brain linked to memory and learning, shrinking it. In contrast, the study found that when depression and anxiety occur together, it leads to an increase in size of the part of the brain linked to emotions, the amygdala.
Depression is the most debilitating disorder worldwide, and one-in-six Australians currently experience depression, anxiety, or both. A particularly important finding of this research is that people who had both depression and anxiety had less shrinkage in many brain areas and even an increase in the amygdala. This indicates that the true effect of depression on the brain has been underestimated because of an opposite effect in the amygdala. Anxiety lowers the effect of depression on brain volume sizes by three per cent on average, somewhat hiding the true shrinking effects of depression.
More information:
https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/your-brain-gets-bigger-if-you’re-anxious-and-depressed