Psience Quest

A Vaccine for Depression?

Ketamine’s remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness.

by Taylor Beck

Quote:Depression is the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 30 percent of Americans at some point in their lives. But despite half a century of research, ubiquitous advertising, and blockbuster sales, antidepressant drugs just don’t work very well. They treat depression as if it were caused by a chemical imbalance: Pump in more of one key ingredient, or sop up another, and you will have fixed the problem.

But the correspondence between these chemicals (like serotonin) and depression is relatively weak. An emerging competitive theory, inspired in part by ketamine’s effectiveness, has it that psychiatric disease is less about chemical imbalance than structural changes in the brain—and that a main cause of these changes is psychological stress. “I really do think stress is to mental illness as cigarettes are to heart disease,” says Gerard Sanacora, the psychiatry professor running the ketamine trial at Yale.

(2018-11-14, 09:11 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]A Vaccine for Depression?

Ketamine’s remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness.

by Taylor Beck

Interesting article, Sci, thanks.

I personally believe that the massive increase in cases of depression probably stems (partly at least?) from the hopelessness of the purely materialistic outlook on life. Once you've done and seen everything there is to see and do, what's really left ? 

I don't think depression is (always) about chemical imbalances (necessarily), I think it is also a possible result of too much negative thinking and genuine feelings of hopelessness about everything under the sun because of the way the world currently goes about it's business. I don't think doing something with neurons chemically is going to change much. Just my thoughts.

Minor problem with Ketamine is that for the effects to last, it has to be taken cumulatively, say, once a week or fortnight, for a long time.

Bonus is relatively no side effects compared to basically all conventional psychiatric drugs.

Once a fortnight is also a major step up from multiple doses a day of drugs which screw with, and alter, the brain's chemistry. If you didn't have a "chemical imbalance" before, they can give you one.