Drugs targeting the ‘happy hormone’ are widely used for depression. But some question whether the condition is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain
caused a stir when it reached the opposite conclusion that “after a vast amount of research, conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence” for the idea that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.
“I think mental health problems are social problems,” she adds. “Trying to treat them as problems of individuals doesn’t work.” “Serotonin isn’t going to explain all depression,” says Prof Oliver Howes, a psychiatrist based at Imperial College and King’s College London. “It’s a complicated disorder and there are probably several different subtypes.”
The volunteer is injected with a safe radioactive tracer that is detected by the scanner as it flows through her blood stream, tracing out a 3D map of her body. The tracer is designed to bind to serotonin receptors in the brain, illuminating them as a colourful heatmap on the scan. But when a serotonin surge occurs, a fraction of the tracer molecules are kicked off the receptors and the signal drop-off indicates how much serotonin the brain is pumping out.
From an evolutionary perspective, Harmer says, our brains are hard-wired to be highly alert to threats in our environment – and to prioritise paying attention to dangers. She sees depression as a case of this basic survival instinct gone awry. “When people are depressed, they have a negative filter and are more likely to notice negative information and that reinforces negative experiences,” she says. “If you’re only receiving negative information, your hope and pleasure is not prioritised.
After just one dose of an SSRI, the threshold for detecting negative emotions increased – they needed to be more overtly negative to be interpreted as a negative emotion. The opposite trend was seen for faces with positive expressions. Another experiment found that people were less likely to recall negative information after a single dose of an antidepressant drug, although they did not report any change in mood.
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