Is this another Neuron = Depression Joke?

I applaud your attempt to write for the general public as your writing makes it clear that a change of paradigm is required to address depression today there where it occurs, in public, not in the brain of a laboratory rat and technicians using code words. Bravo!

But if you will permit me to state in very layman terms where your argument goes wrong at the level of its conclusions and assumptions.

If someone has cykotine around a neuron, it may well produce a depression — but logically, this does not mean just because I am depressed that I have problems with cykotines around my neurons.

In the most general case, your argument has the structure of a joke:

If my arm is cut off, then I can not wiggle the finger on that arm; but this does not mean just because my finger can not wiggle, that my arm is cut off.

Said in a more precise way, implication does not always reduce to equivalence, i.e. (p implies q), is not the same thing as it converse, (q implies p).Or if they are the same, then p and q are equivalent and there is no longer a problem of causality.

Habitually, arguments like yours, and most other neuro-based clinical diagnostics, assume implication is equivalence which invalidates their conclusions and hypothesis. In a response longer than this short quip, it would be important to show how it is not a question of there being different factors in the causality of depression or not, but rather how not to confuse the logical problem.

But it is nonetheless crucial to present such work in public to gage at what point not only the public, but the researchers can follow the current fad of neuron jokes.

Cheers,

S