SCIENTIFIC THINKING A proposal to test an SSRI in a large number ...

Question

SCIENTIFIC THINKING A proposal to test an SSRI in a large number of individuals with depression was submitted to the FDA. Through random assignments, half of the patients would be controls, receiving nothing at all, and half the patients would receive the drug in pill form. Patients in both groups would note changes in their own mood in a daily journal. What flaw(s) do you note in this experimental design?

Accepted Answer

Hi everyone, welcome back. Let's look at our next question. It says blank is the extensively studied neurotransmitter associated with depression. Our answer choices are dopamine norepinephrine serotonin or adrenaline. Oh! Choice C serotonin is that neurotransmitter associated with depression And therefore very extensively studied hoping to find relief for that condition. Serotonin is associated with mood, sleep and interestingly enough digestion. There's a lot of serotonin receptors in the gut um That actually leads into part of why you feel that sensation of butterflies in your stomach when you're anxious and as a result um A promising category of drugs that used a lot to treat depression are the SSR eyes. These are selective serotonin re uptake inhibitors. They increase the serotonin levels in the brain and it's thought that's why um They treat depression although that's not really well understood why that is the case. But serotonin is associated with depression and as a neurotransmitter. So let's just look at our other answer choices to understand why they are not correct. We've got choice A dopamine and dopamine is sometimes confused with serotonin as being involved in depression. It is a neurotransmitter. Um And it plays a role in pleasure, motivation and learning. So you can see where this involved this association with pleasure might make you think it's associated with depression but the release of dopamine is a pleasurable sensation and that's where the association with motivation and learning comes from. If there's a dopamine release associated with an activity. Um That's a pleasurable feeling and that motivates the activity to continue. So dopamine is not the answer we're looking for. Then. Choice B is norepinephrine and norepinephrine is yet another neurotransmitter. But norepinephrine is the neurotransmitter involved in the fight or flight response when someone is faced with a threat and is involved in that response of getting them ready to run away or to fight the threat and then finally continue along that theme of fight and flight. We have Choice D. Adrenaline and adrenaline is kind of our outlier here. It's not a neurotransmitter but a hormone. And adrenaline is the hormone that's produced when we feel fear, anxiety or stress um having those effects on the body, allowing us to be ready to turn all our resources towards that fight or flight response. So Choice D. Not our answer. So again, the extensively studied neurotransmitter associated with depression is Choice C. Serotonin. See you in the next video

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