Yes, I understand about the placebo affect, there is an excellent book called "Cure" which is very interesting and all about belief and placebo and how they can actually have effects - I would recommend that, too.
https://wordery.com/cure-jo-marchant-97 ... FkQAvD_BwE
Functional medicine can also have a placebo affect as well, it seems, in some people.
It is totally understandable that verbal cues may also help with depression, just as CBT does (cognitive behavioural therapy). Most doctors recommend meds alongside talking therapies such as that, and other things like exercise.
There are also studies showing SSRI's only seems to work in people with more severe depression than others. It is a complex picture. In my case it enabled me, along with other things, primarily exercise and diet changes I made along with the meds, to compete university, and do postgraduate studies. After taking it for many years, I just did the online cognitive function tests mentioned on the forum and came out above average for my age, so it doesn't seem to have affected that, yet anyway. I can only really go by my own experience on that.
My doctors have always been frank with me that these meds won't work on their own, but can be used alongside other things such as CBT and exercise and this things are just as important.
Other anti-ds are also used in pain management and are useful there. Such as amitryptilline which helps me with nerve damage from a past shingles episode. they seem to work by affecting the way the brain processes pain and this is not a placebo affect for me, it makes a big difference, and I know the days I have not taken it. Even small amounts much less than used for depression help with this.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/pain-medicat ... t-20045647 This is why I suggested possibly another med may help someone with pain issues.
I feel we are going a bit off topic onto the placebo affect, however. I am more concerned about nerve damage from anti-ds in terms of cognitive decline and AD.
I have tried looking online about nerve damage caused by SSRIs and see it is mainly about how the receptors are thought to decline after use of them. However the evidence given was from using Ecstacy drug in rats. Which is much stronger and also not in humans. So to go from that to SSRIs in humans is a big jump. If there is more evidence for SSRIs causing such damage to the nerves please can you point me to the research studies, thanks. It will be important for people to know if they are taking them too.
This is the kind of thing I found when I looked,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... brain.html Unfortunately that article is misleading, for example it mentions tarditive dyskinesia which is usually only a side affect of antipsychotics but it does not clarify that, and makes it seem as if it is from the SSRIs too. Other article I found were similar and mostly written by those who had bad experience themselves, after expecting anti-ds by themselves to cure them, and were often anti- psychiatry in general, such as this links to this site, "Toxic psychiatry"
http://www.toxicpsychiatry.com When I explored some of the reseach there, I found it confusing as the articles linked to often did not back up the statements made. For example there was a mention of damage and adaptation in the brain to the affect of antidepressants but the link was about an article which had found increased density in neurons in people taking them long term. See here for example
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter ... 77185.html Also they tend to describe the neurogenesis I mentioned previously as 'abnormal cell growth' and damage too. That article sounds very alarming, but when I look at the links, for example when it says 'This leads to a loss in serotonin receptors which can reach 60 percent" it links to this article
http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/1 ... %2BZKe8%3D which basically concludes more research is needed and it is not as conclusive as the 'factual' information given, at all. It uses words such as 'indicated' or 'may' so I don't understand how he can reach conclusions from that sort of information.
It is interesting that the SSRI's do seem to cause some changes in the brain such as hypertrophy (growth in size) of the serotonin receptors if they just have a placebo affect, as well.
As a Mod on the forum I take what you say seriously.