He suggests the theory was developed to explain how “brain changes occur in depression in a more accessible way”. Again, it’s not clear what he means by this. But this seems to be the crux of the problem. Are the brain changes in depression any different from ‘normal’? Depression is a personal condition. Of course it’s mediated by the brain. That’s commonsense and not rocket science. People don’t need a chemical imbalance theory to understand that.
Young's convinced that “brain changes do occur in the brain of depressed people”. He seems to be saying that these changes cause depression. He’s got muddled that people are their brains (eg. see previous post). Of course I have a brain. If I was depressed I would still have a brain. But that brain is not me, whether I’m depressed or not. It doesn’t cause my depression.
The conclusion of the umbrella review by Moncrieff et al was that there is no convincing evidence to support the theory that depression is caused by low serotonin. Young says this conclusion is wrong. It isn’t! Psychiatrists like Young need to move on from an outdated, misguided physical disease model of mental illness. Otherwise he won’t understand why the serotonin theory of depression needs debunking, even the less simplistic version he wants to promote, whatever that is.
Allan Young's conflicts of interest:
ReplyDeleteDr Young has received:
- grants from the Medical Research Council and ADM Protexin during the conduct of the study;
- grants from Janssen, Lundbeck, and Compass Pathways;
- personal fees from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Sunovion, Allergan, Compass Pathways, Sage, Novartis, Neurocentrx, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, Bionomics, Livanova, Lundbeck, Servier, and Janssen outside the submitted work;
He is editor of the Journal of Psychopharmacology and Deputy Editor of BJPsych Open.
Source: conflicts of interest section on https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2806011