Seasonal Affective Disorder

A mood disorder characterized by depression that occurs at the same time every year.
Seasonal affective disorder occurs in climates where there is less sunlight at certain times of the year.
Symptoms include fatigue, depression, hopelessness, and social withdrawal.
Treatment includes light therapy (phototherapy), talk therapy, and medications.

 

Cluster Number:
Wiki Number: PW198
Diagnosis: Seasonal Affective Disorder
US Patients: 1.4% in Florida; 9.9% in Alaska
World Patients: Finland, 9.5%, Ireland, 20%
Sex Ratio:
Age Onset:
Brain Area: retinohypothalamic tract, suprachiasmatic nucleus, retina and pineal gland.
Symptoms: depressed in winter with over-sleeping, over-eating and too little energy, depressed thinking, loss of interest in activities
Progression:
Causes: lack of available natural light
Medications: SSRI’s, Vitamin D, and othrs
Therapies: light therapy, melatonin, ionized air administration and CBT. Due to skin cancer threat, direct sunlight should be avoided. Eat fish.

Youtube Video: How toknow if you have Seasonal Affective Disorder

Amazon or Library Book:
Ideas To Overcome Seasonal Affective Disorder

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4 CURRENT ARTICLES
FROM PUBMED

The world-wide medical research
reports chosen for each diagnosis 

Clicking each title opens the
PubMed article’s summary-abstract.

  • Research status, hotspots, and implications of seasonal affective disorder: A bibliometric analysis based on CiteSpace and VOSviewer
    by Shuaibo Zhu on January 14, 2025

    The objective was to determine the research status and hotspots of seasonal affective disorders (SAD) based on bibliometric tools, which will contribute to the further research in this field. We used bibliometric tools CiteSpace and VOSviewer to conduct visual quantitative analysis on 465 SAD literatures in the Web of Science core database from 2008 to 2023 from multiple perspectives such as collaboration network, keywords, and literature citations. At the same time, we used Microsoft Word to...

  • Sunshine and Sadness: A Case Report on Summer Season Depression
    by Nikita Shidhore on January 6, 2025

    Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is typically associated with winter; however, its less common variant, summertime depression, presents with depressive episodes during the summer months. We report a case of a 46-year-old male patient with recurrent summertime depressive episodes characterized by low mood, fatigue, anhedonia, insomnia, and loss of appetite, each resolving with the onset of the winter season. Our patient's history of summertime depression aligned with the atypical SAD symptoms,...

  • Bupropion
    by Martin R. Huecker on January 1, 2025

    Bupropion is an antidepressant medication that has received FDA approval for the treatment of depression and seasonal affective disorder and as an aid for smoking cessation. Since its approval in 1985, bupropion has been utilized off-label for various conditions, including antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction, depression associated with bipolar disorder, obesity, and ADHD in pediatric patients. This activity reviews bupropion's clinical applications, including indications, dosing, mechanism...

  • Pupillary response to blue light as a biomarker of seasonal pattern in Major Depressive Episode: A clinical study using pupillometry
    by Julia Maruani on December 25, 2024

    Depressive disorders are characterized by disturbances in light signal processing. More specifically, an alteration of the melanopsin response is suggested. The post-illumination pupillary response (PIPR) to blue light (post-blue PIPR) is increasingly used as a marker of the activity of intrinsically photosensitive melanopsin ganglion cells (ipRGCs). We hypothesized that individuals with Major Depressive Episode (MDE) who exhibited a higher vulnerability to season patterns showed a decreased...