this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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Is serotonin just the placeholder word to use when you have no understanding of neurotransmitters? Seriously, serotonin has like a hundred purposes in the body, what are they trying to refer to?
The advertising for SSRIs convinced a lot of people that depression is cause by not enough serotonin, so there's this idea that serotonin = happiness.
Yeah, I don't usually like arguing semantics but the serotonin thing grinds my gears since there's so many causes and treatments to depression and serotonin isn't even involved in many situations.
Us old folk heard that depression was because of low serotonin years ago, and the idea stuck like old gum to the underside of a desk. Yeah, it could be scrapped off, but since we don't ever see the bottom of the desk, why would we put in the effort. As a side note, that you for you comment as a reminder that I need to see what new treatments to depression do and look into what we have discovered in the last 20 years...
Probably joy/happiness