Everyone is a number in this dystopian near-future where cameras track your every move. Score above 90 and your set for life. Score below 75 and you’re on your own, kid.
The Cycler Series
The Cyler Series: What would you do if you woke up one day as a member of the opposite sex? For Jill McTeague, this is no hypothetical question. It’s real life!
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Because I’m kind of a nerd, I like to spend my evenings streaming talks given at the annual TED conference. (TED stands for Technology Entertainment Design, but it’s actually much broader than that.) The last one I watched was by Helen Fisher who studies romantic love by placing love struck people into MRI machines. It’s a brilliant talk that manages to encompass the whole history of women’s emancipation (which she considers a return to our egalitarian hunter-gatherer past) along with insights into where we may be going with respect to romantic love. I highly recommend watching the whole thing. But the really eerie part comes in at around 18 minutes where she talks about antidepressants and their effect on dopamine levels. Dopamine, it turns out, is a critical component of our sensation of intense romantic love. Antidepressants suppress dopamine. Fisher worries that the rise in anti-depressant usage will mean fewer people will be capable of falling in love. And to quote her show-stopping sentence: “A world without love is a deadly place.” Could it be true? Are we medicating ourselves out of love? 5 Responses to “Antidepressants & Romantic Love”Leave a Reply |
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I don’t think we’re medicating ourselves out of love. Dopamine does have influence on the sensations for romantic love, but our senses, emotions, and behaviours are also influenced by a mixture of serotonin, GABA and other neurotransmitters as well as psychosocial and cognitive factors.
The thing with antidepressants is that they’re used to treat depression or other kinds of mood or anxiety disorders, which are disorders that make meeting people or maintaining relationships really hard. So, the people taking them might have had trouble finding or falling in love on the first place. I think she is right though, on the sense that antidepressants should be used on the short term. I mean, they’re often used long term despite their side effects [like decreased sexual drive], and we aren’t really really sure yet how they work. While we do know of other [if slower] non-drug methods to treat those disorders [like cognitive-behavioural therapy].
Sorry for nerding out here, I’m studying [procrastinating] for a test on this stuff tomorrow.
Never apologize for nerding out in this space, Cristina. That’s what makes the blog worthwhile. I think you’re right about short term usage. I wonder what studies have been done comparing short term to long term usage. Do the benefits of short term usage wear off? Or can people retain the benefits?
Now before you answer, make sure you’re prepared for that test first.
I’m happy to report that I did study for the test and I think did pretty well on it! ^.^
Well, I think how lasting the benefits of short term usage depend a lot on the kind of drug being prescribed [like tricyclic antidepressants take a while to work], the disorder being treated [bipolar, recurrent or single episode depression…], and on the individual. But mostly stopping a drug treatment increases the chances of relapse.
The thing with drugs is that I think they’re other methods that can be used that are equally or even more effective but that sometimes aren’t used because of cost [oh the crappy health system!] or time constraints. Taking pills is less costly and quicker than say paying for therapy sessions. But then there are the side effects.
Ideally there should be a balance, like there has even been evidence suggesting the effectiveness of treating mood disorders using a combination therapy [drugs and psychological therapy]. This method takes advantage of the drug’s fast acting effect, and the psychological therapy’s protection against relapse and so eventually leading to the withdrawal of meds. But because combined therapy is pretty expensive, treatment usually starts with either drugs or therapy and it is only combined and or switched if the first choice was not effective.
Of course all that it’s about antidepressants and mood disorders. Other meds and disorders are a whole other thing. Also, I’m sort of biased on this, I’m on psychology so I have a tendency to favor psychological treatments.
i’m totally doing the TED thing too! love it! i’m actually considering a writing exercise in which I write a creative response to each TED lecture I watch.
Keep studying, Cristina, and come up with a solution to this all of this. We’re counting on you.
Claire, it’s funny, but I’ve been thinking of doing the exact same thing. There’s so much rich material at TED. I really should go one of these years.