Complicated grief

The Washington Post ran an article today about a condition called complicated grief. We have all had loss in our lives that we have grieved over but as deep as the grief is when fresh, over time it lessens. People who suffer from complicated grief don’t experience that lessening. A discovery that a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens is activated by thoughts and memories of what was lost helps to explain this phenomenon. This part of the brain is associated with cravings and addiction, and in anticipating a reward. The theory is that those people who can't adjust to their loss are experiencing something pleasurable in their memories and "are addicted to the happy memories."

This discovery also explains why these people don't respond to traditional remedies for depression, which act on a different brain system involving serotonin. Scientists thing that a drug that acts on dopamine, which is involved with the nucleus accumbens, might be more effective.