Posted on 09/02/2014 12:15:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The latest research exploring the topic found that mice without serotonin still reacted to antidepressants. The data could change the way we think about treating the leading cause of disability worldwide.
A lack in serotonin might not be entirely to blame for depression, new evidence suggests.
It's widely believed that people with depression don't make enough serotonin-a messenger in the brain. But mice lacking serotonin did not exhibit symptoms of depression, reports a study in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
When Prozac — which works primarily by increasing the amount of serotonin in the brain — was introduced in the 1980s, scientists thought that upping serotonin levels was how to cure depression, which affects more than 350 million people and is the global leading cause of disability. Many other medications for depression came after.
But researchers say that 60% to 70% of people taking these types of antidepressants, called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, still remain depressed. And a study done in the 1990s by Pedro Delgado of the University of Texas found that humans depleted of serotonin didn't get depressed. Science has since gone back and forth on serotonin's role in the debilitating illness.
Donald Kuhn and his team at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center and Wayne State University School of Medicine wanted to add their research to the conversation.
Studying mice they engineered to be incapable of producing serotonin, they found that while those mice were more aggressive and compulsive than regular ones, they did not show signs of depression. They didn't even show any differences to regular mice when put under stress. And, normal mice and a one group of altered mice reacted similarly to antidepressants, suggesting that serotonin wasn't the deciding factor at play.
The researchers said that their study could lead to new ways we think about treating depression.
Well that blows out a multi-billion dollar industry.
You don’t mean that it is not just a chemical imbalance?
It’s obviously caused by liberals.
So we are back to square 1 and don’t really know what causes clinical depression.
The cure for depression is Jesus.
Just because they increase people’s seratonin does not necessarily mean that a person’s depression was caused by lack of seratonin. I always assumed it was felt that extra seratonin helped with whatever was making them depressed. Just like pain is not caused by “lack of painkillers”.
Everyobne must be happy all the time, otherwise they will tell you that you are clinically depressed...
How do you know if mice are depressed? Just wondering!
Depression (personally and nationally) is caused by an excess of Obama.
A general collapse in SSRI sales volume would undoubtedly cause many people to become depressed.
Certainly worked for my wife. Clinically depressed for decades, attended a prayer session three years ago and hasn’t been seriously depressed since.
I don't think that's the true.
The problem is IIRC that the serotonin released by the pre-symaptic neuron which is intended to be release into the synapse and absorb by the post-synaptic neuron is, in a depressed persons brain, reabsorbed by the pre-synaptic neuron thereby preventing it from reaching the post-synaptic neuron.
Hence the name SSRI for some antidepressants. SSRI is an acronym which stands for Selective Serotonin RE-UPTAKE INHIBITOR.
‘So we are back to square 1 and don’t really know what causes clinical depression.’
That makes me sad.
Absolutely. And adding a good daily exercise program won't hurt either.
Listless, lack of interest in cheese, half-heartedly running away from cats.
No, He never promised to cure everything. Just that His Grace would be sufficient to endure it.
Clinical depression is caused by clinics, of course!
Matthew 11:28
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
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