> “One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people’s lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.”
If a little alarm bell is ringing inside your head that "something is really really wrong" you are not alone.
Disclosure: I'm a psychiatrist, and find this "hot take" to be a drive-by shooting on a strawman, but whatever. A good collection of reactions to this article:
>Prof Gitte Moos Knudsen, Professor of Neurobiology and Chair of Department of Neurology and Neurobiology Research Unit, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, said:
>The authors justify the need for such a review by saying that it is a public misconception that depression is caused by low brain serotonin. The main misconception is, however, that depression is a single disease with a single biochemical deficit. Today, it is largely accepted that depression is a heterogeneous disorder with potentially multiple underlying causes. The review aims to uncover existing evidence for a serotonergic deficit, but the studies included in the review use methodologies that only generate proxies for the real question which is if synaptic 5-HT concentration and release are altered in (subsets) of patients with major depression.
>Prof Phil Cowen, Professor of Psychopharmacology, University of Oxford, said:
>I studied the role of serotonin in people with depression for three decades and I’m broadly in agreement with the authors’ conclusions about our current efforts, though I lack their adamantine certainty. No mental health professional would currently endorse the view that a complex heterogenous condition like depression stems from a deficiency in a single neurotransmitter
Thanks for this, the critiques are useful enough at layman level and say just about what I expected. I do appreciate the spirit of the article itself opening the solution space to additional therapies than SSRI medication, which may seem obvious but I feel is important to articulate to the general public.
4 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 23.9 ms ] threadIf a little alarm bell is ringing inside your head that "something is really really wrong" you are not alone.
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-a-revi...
>Prof Gitte Moos Knudsen, Professor of Neurobiology and Chair of Department of Neurology and Neurobiology Research Unit, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, said:
>The authors justify the need for such a review by saying that it is a public misconception that depression is caused by low brain serotonin. The main misconception is, however, that depression is a single disease with a single biochemical deficit. Today, it is largely accepted that depression is a heterogeneous disorder with potentially multiple underlying causes. The review aims to uncover existing evidence for a serotonergic deficit, but the studies included in the review use methodologies that only generate proxies for the real question which is if synaptic 5-HT concentration and release are altered in (subsets) of patients with major depression.
>Prof Phil Cowen, Professor of Psychopharmacology, University of Oxford, said:
>I studied the role of serotonin in people with depression for three decades and I’m broadly in agreement with the authors’ conclusions about our current efforts, though I lack their adamantine certainty. No mental health professional would currently endorse the view that a complex heterogenous condition like depression stems from a deficiency in a single neurotransmitter
You would figure that in the intervening 119 years more progress would have been made....