One of the
disorders that psychology can treat are those about mood. In this category, we can find depression, for example. In relation to this subject, I found an online diary (www.guardian.co.uk) with an article in it. This article was about effects that pharmacologic treatments were supposed to have in people with depression. This article was also about how antidepressive treatments works and how they have been developed.
First of all, it is important to consider that depression implies a chemical unbalance on a cerebral level. Scientists thought that was related to a decrease of monoamines. According to this, scientists thought that if they developed a method to increase this neurotransmissors, they could treat depression. For years they tried and tried, but they found some problems. The first problem was that antidepressive treatments take at least a month to make an effect. This, was inconsistent with the monoamines theory.
The second problem was that these treatments didn’t work for all patients. They found that just a 60% was effective.
The third problem was much more complicated. Scientists found that if they reduce the serotonine or monoamines in people in order to induce depression people didn’t always shows the disorder or symptoms. So, they throw away monoamines as an valid explanation.
In exchange, scientists proposed another theory, neurogenesys theory. This theory would come to replace monoamine theory by giving a better explanation of the phenomena. So, now scientists are trying to improve in this capacity to produce neurogenesys instead monoamine.
Neurogenesys treatment shows to be an interesting idea. But it is not perfect. In fact, studies cannot distinguish real changes in depressed humans. Som studies have shown interesting founds, but others just don’t.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/28/depression-serotonin-neurogenesis
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