Episode 34: Does depression exist?

Several previous episodes of The Studies Show have covered depression and treatments for it, but none have really considered what depression is. It’s time to do that. It turns out that some scientists have made serious critiques of the standard way of thinking about depression, and argue that we need a revolution in the way we measure it.

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart take nothing for granted - they look into the idea of “latent variables”, read the studies critiquing the concept of a single, monolithic “depression”, and talk about what this all means for how we treat people with these often-terrible symptoms.

We’re proud to be sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, which is, as they put it, “a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world”. You can find their beautifully-illustrated and detailed essays on all kinds of scientific and technological subjects at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* Our World in Data on depression prevalence

* And covering some of the problems in estimating depression prevalence

* Meta-analysis on antidepressant trials

* Study looking at how depression rates have (or haven’t) changed over time

* Article criticising the serotonin hypothesis of depression…

* …and a rebuttal

* Study showing how tricky it is to find replicable brain correlates of things like depression

* Eiko Fried’s website, with his blog and links to his papers

* Study on “the 52 symptoms of major depression”

* Study showing how depression measures might not be measuring the same thing over time

* Study showing that the same seems not to be true for intelligence

* Article “revisiting” (strongly critiquing) the theoretical and empirical basis for depression research

* A new-ish statistical way of thinking about the symptoms of depression: as part of a dynamic network

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe