Eli5: why is there no test for the “chemical imbalance” that is often mentioned for depression?
In: Chemistry
When we think about “chemical imbalance” and depression, those chemicals are mostly neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are made in the brain and they work between neurons which are tiny parts of the brain.
To test the number of neurotransmitters in the brain, we would have to take samples from inside the brain, which would be very difficult and dangerous because the brain is so delicate.
Another problem is that we don’t actually know much about the “chemical imbalance” explanation. It looks like it’s one part of the bigger puzzle, because a lot of people with depression benefit from medicines that affect that balance. Not all though. So even if we could measure how many neurotransmitters someone’s brain is making, using, and breaking up, we wouldn’t know what those numbers meant.
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