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A comment on “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels. Parent comment

Re:“No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low... by biophysboy on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @11:12PM (#32160946)
Depression has no common cause or common set of symptoms. I read a paper that likened it to a watershed, with tributaries feeding into a general pool of malaise. The watershed varies from person to person, and affects their internal “ecosystem” differently.

Maybe it’s a bit cute, but with this understanding, I think the headline is not shocking. We will never find the one cause of depression because there isn’t one.

In my opinion, our best bet is more personalized medicine: helping people identify which rivers are filling up their lake of depression. For most people it will be a weighted combination of many things, but I think there will usually be some principal components.

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Re:“No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low... by frazbin on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @11:56PM (#32161241)
The test to see how depressed a lab mouse is, is to put it in a bucket of water and see how long it struggles. True story.
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Re:“No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low... by kortex on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @01:24AM (#32161770)
One of them is, yes. There are several, and basically all of them are some variant of "how resistant to giving into despair are you? (as a rat)". Forced swim, tail suspension, light/dark exploration activity. Kinda dark, but this research saves lives, and depression is notoriously hard to study objectively.
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