Mental illness: is 'chemical imbalance' theory or myth?

Medications
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This is from a local newspaper.

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Since the begining of my major my teachers always said that your organism is in a constant state of chemical imbalance, you need that imbalance to survive.
What I’m trying to say is that you need that imbalance so that reactions occur :wink:
Maybe the imbalance is even greater with mental illness cuz the reactions that help your body live and function normally doesn’t occur, or does less than it’s supposed to.
Hope I helped :slightly_smiling_face:

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Myth because people who are mentally ill have different chemical balances in their brains but forcing them to be normal does not help and causes irritability.

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I get what your saying. It’s almost like it takes away your normal survival abilities too. I feel like this article covers all the bases.

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I believe it, because I developed schizophrenia from abusing Piracetam for a number of months, which is known to upregulate NMDA receptor density by over 20%, so I became overly sensitive to sensory input and gradually lost my grip on reality, leading to numerous hospitalizations and a schizophrenia diagnosis.

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I feel like we still don’t really know what’s going on. I think more new age psychiatrists believe it’s purely mental and not chemical.

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I read the article, and the author’s thesis seems to be that since anti-psychotics do not cure schizophrenia the chemical imbalance theory is a myth. That’s nonsense. There’s a plethora of evidence that shows that the positive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions) of schizophrenia are significantly improved by anti-psychotics that work on an imbalance of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

It’s true that the current anti-psychotics are ineffective in treating negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, but that’s not justification to abandon the theory of chemical imbalance.

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i think mental illness is probably caused by a mix of chemical imbalance + structural difference + environment

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Yes @korieve he mentions other branches of research such as stem cells. But that the stemcell meds aren’t developed enough yet.

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@ablue

I do not believe that schizophrenia is solely caused by a chemical imbalance, but why throw the baby out with the bathwater?

I think we’re on the same page. Yes or no?

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We might be on the same page. I just dont understand the metaphor. Ill reread your post.

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Well i agree they work but i think what hes saying is that. The illness cant be defined and that his stance is that its more mental. He just wanted some shock value and said it in a more round about way.

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@ablue

What I mean by the metaphor is that we need to take a multi-pronged approach to this complex syndrome. This doesn’t necessitate dismissing dopamine’s relation to positive symptoms.

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Yes. I don’t really know why he’s dismissing it. He may be biased with that idea for some reason. But he is saying a lot of other good things. Including what we are saying is that it involves other things then what the current meds are solving. Don’t ditch the progress right.

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@ablue

Yes. I completely agree with you.

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Mental illness pathophysiology is much more complicated than stating certain things go down or up, so we should adjust accordingly. The monoamine hypothesis has been around for a while now, but we’re finding out many new things about mood disorders and possibly new targets for therapeutic formulations that certainly indicates that monoamine metabolism is not the only factor that goes into what happens when someone becomes depressed.

The dysregulated HPA axis, inflammatory and oxidative stress, neurotrophic factors, and a host of (epi)genetic/genomic changes in depression are a few of the theories that are being postulated to be intricately involved in those with severe depression pathology, especially in treatment resistant patients. I am by no means an expert, but I find this stuff rather fascinating and I believe recent technological advances (e.g. using miRNA to characterize genetic irregularities) will definitely give us a clearer picture of what’s going on in our heads =).
One thing to note, though, is that depressive disorders are highly heterogeneous, and for this reason, you can’t view depression as having a singular pathology but rather a syndrome with a variety of etiologies.

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I can’t understand all of what your saying inner circle. But I like it.

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Thanks to all who have participated in this topic. Makes me feel like my posts matter!

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Lol whoever flagged my post is a pos. Own up and don’t be scared say who you are.

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I think being tense ( as we are ) causes difficulties in the natural flow of body juices, or chemicals. So that more relaxed people wouldn’t feel the same imbalance.

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