3 ms·

Both are effective on the same people? Otherwise, it kind of makes sense. If depression is just an imbalance, it may be that there is either too much serotonin

by xxpor 13y ago

Both are effective on the same people? Otherwise, it kind of makes sense. If depression is just an imbalance, it may be that there is either too much serotonin or too little.

jes5199 13y ago
unfortunately, we don't have good data on which drugs are effective on the same people versus on different people. The clinical trials just aren't set up that way, and there hasn't been a concerted effort to gather that information from the general population.
chimeracoder 13y ago
> If depression is just an imbalance, it may be that there is either too much serotonin or too little. Depression is a heterogeneous condition. The "truth" is that it's probably not one, but several conditions with similar symptoms; we just don't have the means to distinguish between them yet. So, we (ie, psychiatrists) try different medications that are known to work on some subset of depression patients, and hope that we find one that fits. I think this is part of why psychiatry gets a bad reputation - even when practiced well, it's an attempt to develop a model for one of the most complicated systems in existence: the human mind & body. When you think about it like that, it's almost a miracle that we're able to do anything given our limited understanding of the way the mind works. (With many medications, we know what chemical effect the medicine has, and we know what subjective effect the medicine has, but we actually don't have a solid understanding of the link between those two). But that's not an indictment of the field as a whole, just an observation of how much more we have yet to learn.
slurry 13y ago
The hypothesis that depression comes from a deficiency of serotonin is, from what I understand, no longer considered viable among research psychiatrists[0], although it's still widely believed by practitioners and the general public. Which isn't to say that serotonin-dousing couldn't still be a viable treatment, but your brain doesn't have an ibuprofen deficiency just because Advil takes care of your headaches. [0] http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/23/145525853/when-it-comes-to-depression-serotonin-isnt-the-whole-story http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/23/145525853/when-it...

by xxpor 13y ago

Both are effective on the same people? Otherwise, it kind of makes sense. If depression is just an imbalance, it may be that there is either too much serotonin or too little.

jes5199 13y ago

unfortunately, we don't have good data on which drugs are effective on the same people versus on different people. The clinical trials just aren't set up that way, and there hasn't been a concerted effort to gather that information from the general population.

chimeracoder 13y ago

> If depression is just an imbalance, it may be that there is either too much serotonin or too little. Depression is a heterogeneous condition. The "truth" is that it's probably not one, but several conditions with similar symptoms; we just don't have the means to distinguish between them yet. So, we (ie, psychiatrists) try different medications that are known to work on some subset of depression patients, and hope that we find one that fits. I think this is part of why psychiatry gets a bad reputation - even when practiced well, it's an attempt to develop a model for one of the most complicated systems in existence: the human mind & body. When you think about it like that, it's almost a miracle that we're able to do anything given our limited understanding of the way the mind works. (With many medications, we know what chemical effect the medicine has, and we know what subjective effect the medicine has, but we actually don't have a solid understanding of the link between those two). But that's not an indictment of the field as a whole, just an observation of how much more we have yet to learn.

slurry 13y ago

The hypothesis that depression comes from a deficiency of serotonin is, from what I understand, no longer considered viable among research psychiatrists[0], although it's still widely believed by practitioners and the general public. Which isn't to say that serotonin-dousing couldn't still be a viable treatment, but your brain doesn't have an ibuprofen deficiency just because Advil takes care of your headaches. [0] http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/23/145525853/when-it-comes-to-depression-serotonin-isnt-the-whole-story http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/23/145525853/when-it...