Critiquing the Critique: Resisting Commonplace Criticisms of Antidepressants in Online Platforms

Critiques of antidepressants in public spaces such as print media, blogs, social media, websites, and radio and television programs are now commonplace. Such critiques typically center on issues such as the side effects and risks of antidepressants, overblown claims of effectiveness, the fallacy of the chemical imbalance hypothesis, overprescribing, and the availability of equally or more effective nonmedication interventions for depression. In this article, we employ a discursive analysis to show how online commenters fashion a particular counter-argument to these critiques. Prominent in this counter-argument is that only “real” depression benefits from antidepressants, and that a “one-size-does-not-fit-all” understanding of these medications is needed. We argue that, while this nuanced counter-critique contains features that make it difficult to undermine, it simultaneously embeds many unanswered questions.

Chemical imbalance and mental health

No chemical imbalances have been proven to exist in relation to any mental health condition, like serotonin deficiency in synapses in the so-called depressive disorders or dopamine imbalance and dopamine receptors distribution in socalled schizophrenia. No independent objective biological marker or current brain imagining science like fMRI exist to date in support of any psychiatric diagnosis, and finally yet importantly, no biological causes exist for any of the socalled psychiatric disorders. If we avoid Cartesian dualism, the claim that mental disorders are biological is obviously a tautology. Given the facts above, psychiatric diagnostic manuals, such as the DSM and ICD, are school examples of what evidence-based science is not and represent nothing but a failed attempt to build a legal road from Health Care to Hell Care by over-medicalization and by the suffering of human and non-human animals. Furthermore, psychiatric drugs can have long-lasting effects on the brain and the central nervous system, while, the withdrawal from them can cause a range of severe physical and psychological effects.

Science

There was a strong desire within psychopharmacology to find a firm scientific basis for the field, hoping to ensure that it was regarded as a science. This chapter explains how the pseudo-scientific proposition on drug efficacy has become the notion that patients are suffering from “chemical imbalances.” It also emphasizes the industry’s leaping on chemical imbalance from the very beginning, because it sounded so plausible and so scientific that patients could easily grasp it. The chapter refers to a 1976 ad for USV’s tricyclic antidepressant Pertofrane that promised higher norepinephrine levels through reuptake blockade. It explains how depressions are associated with an absolute or relative deficiency of catecholamines, particularly norepinephrine.

When freeze-out occurs due to a non-Boltzmann suppression: a study of degenerate dark sector

Exponential suppression or commonly known as the Boltzmann suppression in the number density of dark matter is the key ingredient for creating chemical imbalance prior to the usual thermal freeze-out. A degenerate/quasi-degenerate dark sector can experience a different exponential suppression in the number density analogous to the radioactive decay law leading to a delayed freeze-out mechanism of dark matter known as the co-decaying dark matter. In this work, we study the dynamics of a multicomponent dark matter from thermally decoupled degenerate dark sector in a hidden U(1)X extension of the Standard Model. We compute the relic density of dark matter frozen-out through the co-decaying mechanism by solving four coupled Boltzmann equations. We demonstrate how temperature T′ of the dark sector changes due to all types of 3 → 2 and 2 → 2 interactions along with the eternal expansion of the Universe. We find that 3 → 2 interactions enhance T′ by producing energetic particles in the dark sector while the excess heat is transferred by 2 → 2 interactions to the entire dark sector. As the direct detection is possible only through the feeble portal couplings, we investigate the neutrino and γ-ray signals from dark matter annihilation via one step cascade processes and compare our results with the measured fluxes of atmospheric neutrinos by Super-Kamiokande and diffuse γ-rays by Fermi-LAT, EGRET, INTEGRAL collaborations. We find that the present scenario easily evades all the existing bounds from atmospheric neutrino and diffuse γ-ray observations for degenerate dark sector. However, the constraints are significant for quasi degenerate scenario.

Role of neurotransmitters in schizophrenia: a comprehensive study

Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder, way tougher to diagnose than other psychological disorders, as it shares similar symptoms with psychosis. As we know, schizophrenia occurs due to chemical imbalance in the brain; identifying the role of neurotransmitters in schizophrenia poses a vital area to study. Neurotransmitters being the sole carrier of different brain activities, researchers have already initiated studies to investigate their role and effect in disorder. Firstly, this paper performs a critical review of the literature that dealt with different neurotransmitters in schizophrenia. Secondly, we identify the most important neurotransmitters and broadly elaborate on their functional roles and effects on the disorder. Finally, we have successfully identified various gaps and unexplored research questions to investigate these neurochemicals' role. Studies show that neurotransmitters like dopamine, glutamate, GABA, serotonin, and oxytocin are majorly responsible for schizophrenia, among which dopamine contributes the most. To the best of our knowledge, this paper encapsulates all the neurotransmitters, enzymes, and chemicals for the first time and explores their related literature. This study also identifies the most responsible chemicals involved in schizophrenia and unfolds the research community's unsolved problem.

The Emergence of Kleptomania in Children and How to Cope with Therapy

kleptomania in children, signs and triggers of kleptomania in children, and Overcoming Kleptomania in Children. Since committing fraud, the kid would, on the whole, feel satisfied. Kleptomania is often linked to depression or obsessive-compulsive behavior. Kleptomaniacs steal on the spur of the moment, with little prior planning. Kleptomania is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain that occurs during a head injury. Several approaches to overcoming kleptomania in children can be used, including parental approaches, Islamic approaches, talking to a psychiatrist, giving the child love and encouragement, including the child in athletic activity, psychotherapy and Rational Emotive Counseling, and opioid rehab against the child to discourage the offender from being more serious.

BILLINGS RESERVOIR (BRAZIL): CHEMICAL STUDIES ON WATER AND CHEMICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL STUDIES ON ZEBRAFISH GILLS

Previous study of this research group revealed that water from the Billings reservoir (Brazil) intended for human use (water supply and seafood) has microbiological contamination and causes lethality and brain and behavioral impairments in zebrafish. The objective of this study was to understand what have induced these impairments in the animal model. Chemical analyses on water samples from Rio Pequeno (RP), Rio Grande (RG), and Bororé (BO) rivers, as well as chemical and morphological analyses on zebrafish gills exposed to those waters were performed. Waters samples from RP, RG, and BO presented high levels of phosphorus. BO water and fish gills exposed to this water presented high levels of nitrogen. RG water caused potassium contamination in gills. Phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium are indicators of anthropogenic pollution. RG water and fish gills exposed to this water presented low levels of calcium, which might be an indication of chemical imbalance that could lead to health problems in aquatic animals. RG and BO waters resulted in zirconium contamination in gills. BO water induced respiratory lamellae thickening in the gills, which may be the underlying mechanism for the observed hypoxia. In conclusion, behavioral, brain, and respiratory defects observed previously were induced by chemical and morphologicalb disturbances due to anthropogenic pollution in the Billings reservoir.