Why can’t you just inject serotonin to feel happy?
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Notably, you can OD on serotonin, called serotonin syndrome, which can be fatal (which is why docs usually don’t give you two different SSRIs at the same time and instead augment with antidepressants that work in different ways). If you wanted to give serotonin to someone, and it made it past the blood brain barrier, it could easily be too much and be fatal.
SSRIs work to increase serotonin by preventing them from being reabsorbed by neurons after release, which increases the serotonin between neurons, which allows them to communicate with each other better. It doesn’t make you “happy” per se, but it helps to regulate your mood because the neurons that control mood can communicate better.
Also notably, the serotonin-deficient theory of depression (that there is a lack of serotonin and therefore increasing it will fix the depression) is losing favour. SSRIs can work, but that’s like saying that a cut is a band-aid deficient syndrome. I think newer theories of depression are looking more at inflammation and decreased connectivity.
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