Depression/anxiety caused by low serotonin levels

Zelenius

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Zelenius
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This idea has been used to explain depression as well as anxiety for many years now. Many depression treatments, as I understand it, supposedly work by boosting serotonin levels. But is this idea that low serotonin causes depression and/or anxiety a scientific fact? If not, then what is it?
 
What do you mean by "scientific fact"?

It's the best explanation we have given the data available.
 
I was an early hypothesis about how antidepressant drugs might work, and has continued to be used as an explanation to patients and in the media. But as always, its a bit more complicated than that. Neurotransmitter levels probably play some role in depression, but the relationship doesn't seem to be a simple one. The simple explanation endures because it is probably not completely wrong, it is easily understood by patients, and because there haven't been any obvious successors to the theory. I am intrigued by the hypotheses of brain atrophy (esp in the hippocampus) and the protection against this that antidepressants seem to give and also theories of inflammatory/immune system processes.

This blog post gives a decent summary:

http://neuroscientificallychallenge...04/serotonin-hypothesis-and-neurogenesis.html

ETA: See also: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392
 
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Professor Yaffle said:
I was an early hypothesis about how antidepressant drugs might work, and has continued to be used as an explanation to patients and in the media. But as always, its a bit more complicated than that. Neurotransmitter levels probably play some role in depression, but the relationship doesn't seem to be a simple one. The simple explanation endures because it is probably not completely wrong, it is easily understood by patients, and because there haven't been any obvious successors to the theory. I am intrigued by the hypotheses of brain atrophy (esp in the hippocampus) and the protection against this that antidepressants seem to give and also theories of inflammatory/immune system processes.

This blog post gives a decent summary:

http://neuroscientificallychallenge...04/serotonin-hypothesis-and-neurogenesis.html

ETA: See also: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392
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Thanks. This has been my understanding for some time now, that this idea is at best incomplete, but likely wrong. It seems to border on pseudoscience.

This is important to me because I am in the process of reporting an incompetent doctor. I'll leave out this serotonin nonsense because it over-complicates things, although this doctor said it to me during a particularly egregious case of misdiagnosis.
 
Zelenius said:
Thanks. This has been my understanding for some time now, that this idea is at best incomplete, but likely wrong. It seems to border on pseudoscience.
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I don't see how it's "likely wrong" or pseudoscience. The human brain is very complex, and it's hard to study in a living person.
 
godless dave said:
I don't see how it's "likely wrong" or pseudoscience. The human brain is very complex, and it's hard to study in a living person.
Click to expand...

So because the brain is "very complex" this means that the idea that low serotonin causes depression isn't likely wrong? I don't see how this follows. I also said it "borders on pseudoscience", not it is pseudoscience.

In the very least it does appear this idea is controversial.
 
Zelenius said:
So because the brain is "very complex" this means that the idea that low serotonin causes depression isn't likely wrong? I don't see how this follows. I also said it "borders on pseudoscience", not it is pseudoscience.

In the very least it does appear this idea is controversial.
Click to expand...

You're confusing "simplified" with "likely wrong". The idea isn't controversial, it's just a simplified picture of what's probably going on.
 
Zelenius said:
This idea has been used to explain depression as well as anxiety for many years now. Many depression treatments, as I understand it, supposedly work by boosting serotonin levels. But is this idea that low serotonin causes depression and/or anxiety a scientific fact? If not, then what is it?
Click to expand...


Didn't you know? Science has said that humans only have three moods - low, medium and high serotonion levels.
Yes, its as stupid as that.

Do we fall for it?
Yes we do.
Man up everyone. Smell the Coffee. Grow a beard. Grow a cannabis plant.
 
There are anti-depressants that work the opposite angle...they diminish available serotonin.

There is good reason to question all of this.

MDMA for instance, provides an enormous rush of serotonin.
Yet , ultimately, it causes depression.

We need to look at brain chemistry from these new angles.

The brain has a way of normalizing everything.

There is no happy pill.
 
Zelenius said:
This idea has been used to explain depression as well as anxiety for many years now. Many depression treatments, as I understand it, supposedly work by boosting serotonin levels. But is this idea that low serotonin causes depression and/or anxiety a scientific fact? If not, then what is it?
Click to expand...

This is not what you will find to be teh case, where did you get teh scientic data that serotonin levels is the cause.

The issue is that serotonin is one neurotransmitter involved in mood regulation (which also involves the systems of arousal, pleasure and circadian rhythms)

The main point is that the serotonin system is widespread in both the CNS and PNS and many of its functions are regulatory. The exact theories about why SSRIs have an effect has changed a lot since I went to college and got my degree back in '86, so I really would have to do a bunch of reading.

The main thing is that if you have a system that regulates other systems and that system gets over active then it causes the homeostasis in other systems to go off kilter. By adding the SSRI and consequent effects of more serotonin, in some people the system comes closed to regulation.

This is just some recent citations for the serotonergic theories of depression

I wish I could read this one by Beck:
Biological Underpinnings of the Cognitive Model of Depression: A Prototype for Psychoanalytic Research

but this one is great
Monoamine Theories of Depression: Historical Impact on Biomedical Research

"The article argues that the impact of monoamine theories is best explained by the ability of researchers, governmental agencies, and pharmaceutical companies to invoke theories that advance various projects and agendas."

However that is a sidebar and answer the original point of teh OP, other theories are being investigated now.

Much more interesting are the citations for serotonergic mechanism of depression

This would be a great read!
Integrative physiology of depression and antidepressant drug action: Implications for serotonergic mechanisms of action and novel therapeutic strategies for treatment of depression

Which I recommend peeking at as it hints at the much more complex role of the serotonin systems. (I say hint because you can only see snippets)
 
quarky said:
There are anti-depressants that work the opposite angle...they diminish available serotonin.

There is good reason to question all of this.

MDMA for instance, provides an enormous rush of serotonin.
Yet , ultimately, it causes depression.
Click to expand...

It causes depression when the available serotonin is depleted after the big rush. No big mystery there.
 
Ben Goldacre on the serotonin hypothesis:

That’s the serotonin hypothesis. It was always shaky, and the evidence now is hugely contradictory. I’m not giving that lecture here, but as a brief illustration, there is a drug called tianeptine – a selective serotonin reuptake enhancer, not an inhibitor – and yet research shows this drug is a pretty effective treatment for depression too.

....

The serotonin hypothesis will always be a winner in popular culture, even when it has flailed in academia, because it speaks to us of a simple, abrogating explanation, and plays into our notions of a crudely dualistic world where there can only be weak people, or uncontrollable, external, molecular pressures. As they said in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (4/2/07) “It’s not a personal deficit, but something that needs to be looked at as a chemical imbalance.”
The real world is more complicated than this simple dichotomy. But when you probe the evidence for simple fables about serotonin stories in popular culture, you’ll find “the quote was attributed to a psychiatric nurse practitioner, the author did not respond to e-mails, and the nurse’s e-mail was not available”.
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http://www.badscience.net/2008/01/washing-the-numbers-selling-the-model/

He links to a lot of other good articles too.

BTW SSRIs have no effect on me; only drugs that target the nor-adrenaline system seem to help (eg venlafaxine, mirtazepine).
 
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Dancing David said:
This is not what you will find to be teh case, where did you get teh scientic data that serotonin levels is the cause.

The issue is that serotonin is one neurotransmitter involved in mood regulation (which also involves the systems of arousal, pleasure and circadian rhythms)

The main point is that the serotonin system is widespread in both the CNS and PNS and many of its functions are regulatory. The exact theories about why SSRIs have an effect has changed a lot since I went to college and got my degree back in '86, so I really would have to do a bunch of reading.

The main thing is that if you have a system that regulates other systems and that system gets over active then it causes the homeostasis in other systems to go off kilter. By adding the SSRI and consequent effects of more serotonin, in some people the system comes closed to regulation.

This is just some recent citations for the serotonergic theories of depression

I wish I could read this one by Beck:
Biological Underpinnings of the Cognitive Model of Depression: A Prototype for Psychoanalytic Research

but this one is great
Monoamine Theories of Depression: Historical Impact on Biomedical Research

"The article argues that the impact of monoamine theories is best explained by the ability of researchers, governmental agencies, and pharmaceutical companies to invoke theories that advance various projects and agendas."

However that is a sidebar and answer the original point of teh OP, other theories are being investigated now.

Much more interesting are the citations for serotonergic mechanism of depression

This would be a great read!
Integrative physiology of depression and antidepressant drug action: Implications for serotonergic mechanisms of action and novel therapeutic strategies for treatment of depression

Which I recommend peeking at as it hints at the much more complex role of the serotonin systems. (I say hint because you can only see snippets)
Click to expand...


Thanks. I've read a lot about this over the years from all sides, but will definitely be reading those. The search for truth is far from over.
 
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