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We don’t understand the biological processes behind depression, and there is no lab test used to diagnose depression. It is just as the passage says, a categori

We don’t understand the biological processes behind depression, and there is no lab test used to diagnose depression. It is just as the passage says, a categorization of symptoms. That doesn’t mean there aren’t biological processes at work, but we don’t understand them enough to diagnose depression at that level. We aren’t even really sure why most depression treatments work. Contrast that to diabetes. You don’t get diagnosed with diabetes because you have increased thirst and urination. You are diagnosed with diabetes because your fasting blood sugar level was too high. And the treatments are any number of relatively well understood methods of regulating your blood sugar.

maratc 5y ago
> We aren’t even really sure why most depression treatments work. SSRIs and SNRIs and many others all seem to have a theory behind them, based on biology.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  The theory is "more serotonin and then something something less depression." SSRIs definitely increase the amount of serotonin in the brain. Why and how and if that's what helps is a mystery. > Why boosting brain communication can help alleviate symptoms of depression, however, is unclear, she says. > “We know to some extent what [these drugs are] doing, but we don’t necessarily know why this works for depression or anxiety,” says Edwards. > Antidepressants quickly increase concentrations of these neurotransmitters shortly after someone starts taking the medication, says Christin Drake, a clinical psychiatrist at NYU Langone Health. But patients generally don’t start to feel the benefits for several weeks. The reason for this lag time, and what’s happening during this gap, is not clear. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-antidepressants-work-is-a-mystery-scientists-still-dont-understand https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-antidepressants-... Part of the reason you can tell that we don't really know very much at all about the mechanism of action is that individual patients often have to take a little grand tour of the available medications before they find one that even works on them. Why does this SSRI work for Patient Bob and that SNRI doesn't? Nobody really knows, it's just informed guesswork.

maratc 5y ago

> We aren’t even really sure why most depression treatments work. SSRIs and SNRIs and many others all seem to have a theory behind them, based on biology.

roywiggins 5y ago
The theory is "more serotonin and then something something less depression." SSRIs definitely increase the amount of serotonin in the brain. Why and how and if that's what helps is a mystery. > Why boosting brain communication can help alleviate symptoms of depression, however, is unclear, she says. > “We know to some extent what [these drugs are] doing, but we don’t necessarily know why this works for depression or anxiety,” says Edwards. > Antidepressants quickly increase concentrations of these neurotransmitters shortly after someone starts taking the medication, says Christin Drake, a clinical psychiatrist at NYU Langone Health. But patients generally don’t start to feel the benefits for several weeks. The reason for this lag time, and what’s happening during this gap, is not clear. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-antidepressants-work-is-a-mystery-scientists-still-dont-understand https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-antidepressants-... Part of the reason you can tell that we don't really know very much at all about the mechanism of action is that individual patients often have to take a little grand tour of the available medications before they find one that even works on them. Why does this SSRI work for Patient Bob and that SNRI doesn't? Nobody really knows, it's just informed guesswork.