by The medical community have felt for a long while that low serotonin levels in the brain lead to depression — but there are several problems with that belief — and new research suggests neurogenesis holds a truer key to cure.
If it takes up to a month for medicine to increase serotonin levels in the brain, there should still be a recordable difference in mind and mood as serotonin levels increase over. That was not the case.
Increasing serotonin levels only helped 60% of patients. If low serotonin levels were the cause of depression, everyone on medication should have seen some beneficial, measurable, outcome. That was not the case.
If we reverse the theory — by lowering serotonin levels in non-depressed people — we should see an overall increase in depression. That did not happen.
Anti-depressants increase neurogenesis by creating more cells and by making new neurons in the brain and, more specifically, the hippocampus.
Research is now focusing on increasing neurogenesis — without the side effect current depressive medication creates by increasing neurons — and the promise of this new attack on depression is that we can finally, perhaps, genetically, and permanently, transform the depressive mind into an average one.
I look forward to see if these treatments will be effective. 🙂
I’m with you on that one, Gordon. The research is so exciting and just proves that what we think we know, we might not really know.