SSRIs are not miracle drugs. They work, but they don't appear to work especially well. The NNT for SSRIs is about seven, meaning that you need to give SSRIs to

SSRIs are not miracle drugs. They work, but they don't appear to work especially well. The NNT for SSRIs is about seven, meaning that you need to give SSRIs to about seven patients to resolve one case of depression. That's not terrible, but it's a million miles from a miracle. That number is likely to be somewhat inflated by publication bias. There is no evidence to suggest that Robert Sapolsky "knows more about it than anybody else who is currently alive". He has published four papers on depression, which are all highly speculative and do not involve novel primary research. The most recent of these papers was published 14 years ago. He is clearly an eminent neuroscientist, but he is by no means an expert in depression. A cursory review of the linked lecture suggests that Sapolsky is making bold, weakly substantiated claims about the neurobiological basis of depression that would not be supported by the majority of people working in neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. Your decision to link to this lecture is somewhat peculiar, given that it actually refutes your core claim. In Sapolsky's own words: "all of this knowledge winds up being effective for treating maybe 30, 40 percent of people... the vast majority of people, the antidepressant drugs don't do a whole lot" (timestamp 38:30). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD007954 https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD007954 https://profiles.stanford.edu/robert-sapolsky?tab=publications https://profiles.stanford.edu/robert-sapolsky?tab=publicatio...