More than half the people who take antidepressants for
depression never get relief. Why? Because the cause of
depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat
it aim at the wrong target, according to new research from the
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The
medications are like arrows shot at the outer rings of a bull's
eye instead of the center. A study from the laboratory of long-
time depression researcher Eva Redei, presented at the
Neuroscience 2009 conference in Chicago this week, appears to
topple two strongly held beliefs about depression. One is that
stressful life events are a major cause of depression. The other
is that an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain triggers
depressive symptoms. Both findings are significant because these
beliefs were the basis for developing drugs currently used to
treat depression. Redei, the David Lawrence Stein Professor of
Psychiatry at Northwestern's Feinberg School, found powerful
molecular evidence that quashes the long-hel