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Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

sciencedaily.com

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Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#71

Post by applecore »

anthony_romeo wrote: post #61
phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

It's a good thing that science can change. This is what distinguishes science from dogma. The problem is not these supposed 'reversals', but rather how this information is being reported. Pop-science media reports modest studies as absolute truths to catch eyeballs. When one study merely suggests research in one direction, it's emblazoned as fact on the tabloids. In the example you identified: "Fatty food is bad - no…

Dogma frequently undergoes change, perhaps to a greater degree than science (which is generally the refinement of earlier theories and methods). See, for example, the Protestant Reformation.

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#72

Post by [deleted] »

anthony_romeo wrote: post #61
phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

It's a good thing that science can change. This is what distinguishes science from dogma. The problem is not these supposed 'reversals', but rather how this information is being reported. Pop-science media reports modest studies as absolute truths to catch eyeballs. When one study merely suggests research in one direction, it's emblazoned as fact on the tabloids. In the example you identified: "Fatty food is bad - no…

[deleted]

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#73

Post by primroot »

Rainymood wrote: post #66
phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

>But every time the accepted explanation does a 180 science dies a little bit So let's just keep the earth flat then, shall we ;) This is the beauty of science. If a report on memory that claims X and then another scientist is unable to replicate their results X, what can we say about the validity of X?

It would be the beauty of science if people referred to the weight of the evidence in more accurate language, and if policy makers didn't every now and then find excuses in weakly established conclusions.

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#74

Post by lvs »

phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

These aren't fully contradictory results. The paper is referring in serotonin in one brain structure, the amygdala. The article was wrong to cast such a broad stroke.

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#75

Post by DigitalJack »

phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

That assumes the latest info from science is right. Maybe the earlier info was right, and this is the incorrect interpretation.

Either way it does get frustrating though.

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#76

Post by TallGuyShort »

anthony_romeo wrote: post #61
phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

It's a good thing that science can change. This is what distinguishes science from dogma. The problem is not these supposed 'reversals', but rather how this information is being reported. Pop-science media reports modest studies as absolute truths to catch eyeballs. When one study merely suggests research in one direction, it's emblazoned as fact on the tabloids. In the example you identified: "Fatty food is bad - no…

It's not just pop media though. There's a general attitude among many people I know who have advanced degrees in science that our current understanding is close to perfect, and that every correlation between two variables validates the entire theory that motivated the experiment. There's also a general attitude to just believe headlines and not look for authoritative or in-depth sources. The fact that pop media reports the way it does is a side effect of these underlying problems IMO. We ought to value accuracy in statements and healthy skepticism more than we do, I think.

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#77

Post by astazangasta »

phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

People are asserting that these reversals are a normal part of science and therefore good. I think they are a normal part of science but reveal a huge flaw in the method: scientists frequently over extrapolate and end up drawing erroneous conclusions based on limited data. The widespread presence of basic methodological flaws in many scientific papers such as misunderstanding the meaning of p values means a lot of so-called science is built on faulty reasoning. This is worse than merely presenting a model that imperfectly represents the data, it is simply wrong: reaching conclusions that the data do not justify and never could.

You see this most often with efforts to reduce complex systems down to the effect of single variables; such efforts are almost guaranteed to miss the point. The serotonin story is a good example. The notion that the complexity of human psychology that led to depression could be reduced to the activity level of a single neurotransmitter should strike us as an absurd exercise on its face. It's not even wrong, it's a basic misreading of the problem space.

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#78

Post by oldmanjay »

applecore wrote: post #71
anthony_romeo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good thing that science can change. This is what distinguishes science from dogma. The problem is not these supposed 'reversals', but rather how this information is being reported. Pop-science media reports modest studies as absolute truths to catch eyeballs. When one study merely suggests research in one direction, it's emblazoned as fact on the tabloids. In the example you identified: "Fatty food is bad - no…

Dogma frequently undergoes change, perhaps to a greater degree than science (which is generally the refinement of earlier theories and methods). See, for example, the Protestant Reformation.

this is a definition of "frequently" that vastly stretches what I would have considered the normal bounds.

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#79

Post by tomstokes »

This is a good study, but it's important to understand that the study results [1] don't really contradict much of our current understanding of serotonin-related antidepressant activity. If you read through the actual study, you'll see that the authors aren't disagreeing with SSRI activity but rather attempting to gather more insight into the accepted anxiolytic activity of SSRIs.

Neurotransmitter reductionism is one of the more difficult pop-neuropsychiatry concepts to shake, because it's so tempting to think of neurotransmitters like serotonin in the same way we've come to think of more basic biomarkers like cholesterol levels or other hormone levels. Neurotransmitter function is several orders of magnitude more complex, and can't simply be summarized as "too much" or "too little."

For example, neurotransmitter signaling is often divided in to two components: Tonic and phasic release. Tonic signaling is lower frequency (think closer to DC current for a very crude analogy), while phasic release is higher frequency (think more along the lines of AC current). The balance of tonic vs phasic signaling often has a massive influence on the actual outcome of the signaling. SSRIs are frequently (and wrongly) thought of as generically "increasing serotonin levels" when what they're really doing is altering serotonin dynamics in the synaptic cleft. Inhibiting the serotonin reuptake pump causes the serotonin to stick around longer in the synaptic cleft, which (again, roughly speaking) slows the serotonin dynamics down a bit and moves toward tonic, rather than phasic, signaling. It's not difficult to find studies showing relationships between serotonin tonic and phasic signaling, SSRIs, and stress adaptation differences. See [2] for the first example I found in a quick search.

Another very important component of serotonin signaling are 5-HT1A autoreceptors located on presynaptic terminals. These are part of the feedback loop regulating serotonin release. Briefly, 5-HT1A autoreceptors bind serotonin in the synaptic cleft and apply negative feedback to serotonin release. More serotonin in the synaptic cleft results in more 5-HT1A autoreceptor activation, which will in turn slow serotonin release. SSRIs will increase extracellular serotonin area under the curve, which will result in additional 5-HT1A activation and altered serotonin release dynamics. This system will ultimately re-regulate to some other set-point after several weeks, which is theorized to be part of the reason for the therapeutic lag in SSRI treatment, and also thought to explain why SSRIs often initially cause more anxiety by acutely increasing serotonin levels before the system re-regulates. 5-HT1A autoreceptor modulation is also the theorized mechanism of action of anti-anxiety medications like Buspirone, and 5-HT1A modulation is a property of two of the most recent anti-depressant medications Vortioxetine and Vilazadone.

This is another good study to have, but it's important to not be too quick to think that this contradicts our current understandings.

[1] http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=23197...

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22791197

Re: Individuals with social phobia have too much serotonin

#80

Post by pc2g4d »

anthony_romeo wrote: post #61
phkahler wrote: post #48

>> Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder or social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. It's stuff like this that is destroying the reputation of science in general. I know it's one thing to "lead to believe" and another to "show that", and perhaps that's what happe…

It's a good thing that science can change. This is what distinguishes science from dogma. The problem is not these supposed 'reversals', but rather how this information is being reported. Pop-science media reports modest studies as absolute truths to catch eyeballs. When one study merely suggests research in one direction, it's emblazoned as fact on the tabloids. In the example you identified: "Fatty food is bad - no…

> "The problem is not these supposed 'reversals', but rather how this information is being reported."

The reporting is terrible, but I think there is a problem with the research itself. There's little apparent awareness by many researchers of the limitations of single studies, perhaps because they have been heavily indoctrinated re: the significance of p-values, etc., or perhaps because their careers depend on it.

It's the researchers themselves writing "We show that ____", as if their single study with 20 participants all of whom are starving college freshmen CONCLUSIVELY proves such-and-such completely bizarre point which all previous observations have flatly contradicted. Then the media gobble it up, with all the authority of "science" to back them up, and when further research refutes the flawed study, nobody pays attention.

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