article_snippet.sent: The belief that the most popular antidepressant drugs raise serotonin levels in the brain is nothing more than a myth, a leading professor of psychiatry has claimed.
article_snippet.sent: David Healy, head of psychiatry at the Hergest psychiatric unit in Bangor, North Wales, said the misconception that low levels of serotonin were responsible for depression had become established fact.
article_snippet.sent: The idea that the most popular antidepressant drugs raise serotonin levels in the brain is nothing more than a myth, psychiatrist Professor David Healy argues.
article_snippet.sent: In an editorial in the BMJ, psychiatrist Professor David Healy said that in the 1990s, no one knew if SSRIs raised or lowered serotonin levels but there was no evidence that treatment corrected anything.
article_snippet.sent: ‘Most researchers have long since moved on from the old serotonin model.
article_snippet.sent: ’ NHS Choices, the website which advises patients, says: ‘It would be too simplistic to say that depression and related mental health conditions are caused by low serotonin levels, but a rise in serotonin levels can improve symptoms.
article_snippet.sent: ‘The emerging sciences of the brain offer enormous scope to deploy any amount of neurobabble. '
article_snippet.sent: Until then, so long, and thanks for all the serotonin’, Professor Healy’s editorial concludes.
article_snippet.sent: correct’ an ‘imbalance’ of serotonin in the brain.
article_snippet.sent: Researchers and psychiatrists alike readily demonstrable effect is on serotonin but Researchers and psychiatrists alike have many indirect secondary effects in the brain.
article_snippet.sent: not because of any conspiracy concerning a theory of serotonin’s involvement in depression.
highlights_snippet.sent: Claims the idea low levels of serotonin causes depression is a fallacy .
  