Comment on Rationality, Transhumanism, and Mental Health

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:46:33 GMT

For any given antidepressant there are a few studies that show that they work. Even for homeopathy there are studies that it works.

You said that it's off-label to use the drug as antidepressant. That probably means that the FDA thinks that the studies that exist don't provide enough evidence for it being a good antidepressant.

It hasn't been studied much for that use, though, so we don't know for sure, but repairing damage as opposed to the symptoms of the damage seems like a promising result.

How do you know that rebuilding the specific synaptic connections they studied isn't treating symptoms but causes?

Different people are depressed for different reasons. People who get serious head insuries are more likely to develop depression. If you have a way to address the causes of depression within one person, you don't necessarily have a way to address it for the next person.

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