[astrange]

Yes, and psychiatrists never believed it was "low serotonin" at all, or at least claim to have never believed it.

For ADHD, stimulants actually do treat it by fixing "low dopamine"… in specific areas of the brain. But "low dopamine" is also a description of Parkinson's disease.

But SSRIs don't work like stimulants do; they take a lot more than half an hour to take effect. We don't actually know how SSRIs work in the people where they do work.

[FollowingTheDao]

> But SSRIs don't work like stimulants do; they take a lot more than half an hour to take effect.

Sorry, need to be an anecdote for you. Prozac makes me manic in about 5 hours. We know how SSRIs work, the problem is they are treating a symptom not the cause of depression which is immune dysfunction.

If SSRIs did not increase serotonin there would be no risk of them causing serotonin syndrome, and they do.

[neuronerdgirl]

> the problem is they are treating a symptom not the cause of depression which is immune dysfunction.

Yeaaaaa that's gonna be a serious "citations (plural and trustworthy) needed" from me there

[FollowingTheDao]

Seriously?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-023-02445-y

Here are the plurals….

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2019&q=immune+syst...

[Dylan16807]

"The role of immune dysfunction in BD is currently unclear, with low-grade chronic inflammation (increased plasma cytokines, soluble cytokine receptors, chemokines, acute phase reactants) and T-cell activation features that may be associated with BD, but the results are controversial"

If this is your best citation, then I don't know why you expect everyone to know about and be confident in this theory. And that's without even questioning whether bipolar and depression are the same thing.

Your search results are all over the place and don't show anything coherent.

[FollowingTheDao]

Sorry, wrong link.

https://www.cell.com/neuron/pdf/S0896-6273(20)30431-1.pdf

“It is now well established that dysregu- lation of both the innate and adaptive immune systems occur in depressed patients and hinder favorable prognosis, including antidepressant responses.”

[Dylan16807]

That sounds like evidence it's an important factor in treatment, but it doesn't mean we can be confident it's the cause.

[hinkley]

The fact we still called them SSRIs is the part that gets me. But I suppose until we know how they actually work we can’t just call them “thingy”.

[mtlmtlmtlmtl]

They're called SSRIs because pharmacodynamically, that is what they do. Not sure what's so wrong with that.

[PawgerZ]

They Inhibit the Reuptake of Seratonin Selectively. What should we call them?

[astrange]

If they do something else as a side effect, but it turns out that's the main effect, it might be worth renaming them.

[kayodelycaon]

Most brain-altering drugs have effects beyond just the main target. See this chart for an NDRI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion#Pharmacodynamics