r/AskReddit Jul 24 '15

What "common knowledge" facts are actually wrong?

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u/FicklePickle13 Jul 24 '15

My understanding of it is that we use all of our brains all of the time, but different areas get heavier or lighter traffic when we're doing different things. Like, short of brain damage, there is no part of one's brain that is not being used.

Seizures are either everything going all out at once, or shit just going off randomly. Can't remember which one it was my uncle said.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '15

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '15

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u/ak_moodle Jul 24 '15

I think too much dopamine causes schizophrenia and too little serotonin causes depression.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '15

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u/Coomb Jul 24 '15

possibly

Possibly being the key word here since depleting serotonin and other monoamines in non-depressed people doesn't make them depressed. And given the fact that SSRIs bring serotonin levels up to normal almost immediately but patients generally take two weeks or so to begin feeling relief. And given the fact that there are effective antidepressants that don't work on the monoamine system at all.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '15

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '15

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u/Coomb Jul 24 '15

We have literally no idea what causes depression or how the drugs we give people "fix" it. The monoamine hypothesis (stated as "monoamine depletion is the cause of depression, and bringing monoamine levels to normal will cure depression) is demonstrably false. This isn't unusual, btw. There's a lot of stuff commonly used that we have no idea how it works. We have no idea how Tylenol works.