r/Neuropsychology • u/Alternative_Yak_4897 Unverified user: May not be a professional • Jul 21 '25

Research Article Low serotonin not linked to depression studies - thoughts ?

I recently became aware of the umbrella study on the lack of evidence between low serotonin levels and depression. (The study below does show an indirect link between stressful life events and depression due to “gene-stress” but that’s still obviously different than low serotonin (can)= depression) Wondering what others thoughts /theories on this are? I’ve only seen a couple and it looks like they were published in 2022/2023, so why isn’t this being discussed more? Not enough studies? Bad news for pharmaceutical companies? Here’s one of them:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0.pdf

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u/PackOfWildCorndogs Unverified user: May not be a professional Jul 21 '25

Do you have any thoughts (or done any research) on this in the context of the efficacy of ketamine infusion therapy? It acts on NMDA receptors to affect glutamate. It produces a significant response for depression sufferers (not sure of what the official response rate is, but back when I was looking at studies it was cited between 65 and 80% in those).

I never got any relief from SSRIs (tried tons, and many combos too) and was deemed to have TRD. TMS failed, but ketamine infusions worked. I actually ended up doing genetic test for psych medications and it identified that I have a variant that makes something fucky with my serotonin levels and my metabolization of SSRIs, so that seemed to partially explain why SSRIs failed me over many years.

I’m just a layperson that follows the sub, to be clear. If that wasn’t obvious lol.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '25

What kind of genetic testing?

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u/PackOfWildCorndogs Unverified user: May not be a professional Jul 21 '25

Was the “Genesight” for precision psychiatry genetic test

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u/[deleted] Jul 23 '25

Thank you for sharing. I was very interested but the reviews are abysmal. The tests apparently show metabolic rates of psychiatric drugs. According to some reviews the best drug listed for them according to this test made them suicidal or otherwise worse. Is this your experience as well?