Weekly Q&A: Serotonin and Depression / Mental Health Testing

Join me for my Weekly Mental Health Recap and Q&A!

Livestream every Tuesday at 9:00am West Coast USA / 12:00pm East Coast USA / 6:00am Hawaii / 6:00pm Central European

Videos released this week:
Problems With Mental Health Testing
   • Problems With Mental Health Testing  
Serotonin and Depression
   • Serotonin and Depression  
After a 1 minute recap of each video, I’ll be available for questions on these topics or any other related to Mental Health.

Problems With Mental Health Testing:
A recent study demonstrated that a huge percentage of those who take the PHQ-9 a simple depression screening and monitoring tool - are completely misinterpreting the questions - yet many insurance companies demand such tests to demonstrate an individual's response to depression treatment. Furthermore, even when mental health tests are written well, they're often administered incorrectly, leading to uninterpretable results. Just because we can measure something doesn't mean that we've captured something meaningful.

Serotonin and Depression:
Some critics of psychiatry believe that by refuting that serotonin deficits cause depression, that somehow discredits the value of SSRIs for treating depression. But it was clear from the beginning that serotonin deficits weren't the "cause" of depression - because SSRIs boost serotonin availability immediately, yet take weeks to help with depression. But none of this means that serotonin doesn't have an important role in modulating mood, or mediating the benefits of antidepressant medications.

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  / drjohnkruse  

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Psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author John Kruse, MD, PhD presents practical, actionable, well-researched information about treatment options that scientists and clinicians recommend for adult ADHD and other mental health conditions.
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ADHD topics have a pink background, and those on more general mental health topics have a purple background. A small collection of Politics related videos have an orange background.
Dr. Kruse has posted videos in the "Videos", "Live", and "Shorts", sections of this channel.

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