Depression And Serotonin: Psychologists Still Not Sure About Serotonin’s Role In Depression Despite Pharmaceutical Company Lobbying For SSRIs

Since the explosion of Prozac onto the pharmaceutical market in the 1980s, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) have continued to be the go to method to treat depression. While some results have been positive in terms of treatment, a recent study shows that low serotonin levels are not the absolute cause of depression, and the neurotransmitter may not actually play as large a role in the illness as originally thought.

"Depression poses a major public health problem," said Donald Kuhn and colleagues at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center and Wayne State University School of Medicine, according to Medical News Today. It may seem surprising that this is still the case in 2014, but recent data from the World Heath Organization suggests that more than 350 million people suffer from it. But the medical community may be on the brink of an important discovery as a new research study has shown that previous thoughts about the role of serotonin in depression may be incorrect.

According to Psych Central, "In a study, scientists report that mice lacking the ability to make serotonin in their brains did not show depression-like symptoms." They go on to explain that in order to test their theory, they created genetically modified mice that could not produce serotonin ("knockout mice") and then ran tests that would allow the mice to display depression-like behavior, if indeed it was present.

Instead of demonstrating symptoms of depression, the mice were instead "compulsive and extremely aggressive." Medical News Today also reports that, "when put under stress, the knockout mice behaved in the same way most of the normal mice did. In addition, a subset of the knockout mice responded therapeutically to antidepressant medications in a similar manner to the normal mice."

While the results of the study imply that serotonin may not be involved at all, other psychologists still believe that researchers still do not have any conclusive answers as to what causes depression, or the role that serotonin ultimately plays in the illness. In fact, Psych Central recently reported that there is a huge disconnect between what researchers actually know about serotonin and what pharmaceutical companies claim research has conclusively demonstrated.

In the end, it would appear that despite what advertisements for Prozac and Zoloft might claim, treatment of depression still does not have a simple solution yet.