Name: Does Taking SSRIs Damage Our Brain?
Uploaded: 2025-07-10T21:22:18.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Does Taking SSRIs Damage Our Brain?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Does Taking SSRIs Damage Our Brain?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-10. Transcript available.

I know that I take antidepressants, right? I think that's popular. You just
mentioned
SSRIs. You just mentioned those? I mentioned serotonin, which is the first S in
SSRI, yeah.
Okay. Does taking SSRIs damage our brain? Well, taking SSRIs doesn't damage the
serotonin neurons,
but taking SSRIs has all kinds of bad side effects. I'm sure you know about
some of them.
One of the ones that is most common is reducing your libido, your sexual desire.
And so the other big problem with SSRIs is they only work so-so, right?
Actually,
if you look at people who try SSRIs for depression, about a third of people
will say,
oh yeah, that works pretty good. I feel maybe not totally better, but enough
that I can notice it.
About a third of the people will say, oh, very minimal, just a little bit
better. And about a
30 people say it didn't do a thing for me at all. So it's better than nothing,
but SSRIs are not that
great. And they're not as good as exercise. They're not as good as cognitive
behavioral therapy.
And whereas exercise has side effects that are good for you, SSRIs have side
effects that are bad for
real. Well, it's, you know, it's funny you say some of this because for myself,
I noticed with, I've been on my thing for 20 years or something.
If I am really feeling sometimes overwhelmed, I almost need to get off of them
or I will lower my own dose.
Really? Interesting.
Because sometimes I can't get feelings out of me, it feels like, because they're
kind of stopping it somehow. I don't know the science behind it. And I don't
know if that's true, but that's how it feels to me. Does that make any sense?
If it feels to you, then it's true, right? You know, I mean, everyone responds
a little differently to these things. Some people that work, some people makes
them feel this way or that way. But, you know, your experience is the truth.
Yeah. You know, we're talking about a drug that's supposed to change how you
feel. So how you feel is real. It's not like anyone could say to you, well,
that's not true. That's bullshit. No, that's true. That's what's happening for
you. And I'm sure for certain other people as well.
Does that heightened serotonin, does it make it so you can't have certain
feelings?
Well, you know, it does damp people down a bit. For some people, it kind of sedates
them. Like some people, I know people on SSRIs who will take a little Ritalin,
too, because they have a hard time concentrating enough to work while they're
on their SSRIs.
Some people will take drugs like Yohimbine to try to get back the sexual desire
if that's been dampened out by the SSRIs. But, you know, this, I mean, you got
SSRIs, they're a stopgap solution. They're not nearly as good as they should be.
It's embarrassing for the field of neuroscience that after all these years
working on depression, we don't have something better, that our understanding
of depression is so bad that we can't offer you a better therapy than SSRIs.
Well, it's kind of fascinating to hear you say that. Do you think that is
because of there's not enough science? There's not enough information? Is that
because pharmaceutical companies are so happy with the sales that they adjust
where they put their funds? Or is it just a research issue? Or what do you
think there?
Yeah, so I think it is a research issue. And I think part of it is that in neuropsychiatric
disease, sometimes when we make a bucket and we throw lots of things into that
bucket, we say, oh, depression, that's the bucket. Well, depression can
manifest in all kinds of different ways.
There's a depression where you just feel low and unmotivated and nothing makes
you happy. And there's another kind of like agitated depression where you're
like really on edge and anxious. And we call those both depression.
But are they really the same? Well, probably not. They're probably not. I mean,
we know they're not an experience and they're probably not in your brain as
well. But let me give you an example of a way in which there's some hope for
moving this forward.
So, the serotonin neurons in the brain are in a part of the brain that's called
the RAPHE.
The RAPHE.
The RAPHE. Yeah, R-A-P-H-E.
It sounds nice.
I know. It sounds like you'd name your kid that, right?
Yeah, it sounds like a nice place to take a vacation, like a honeymoon.
That's right. That's right. We're going to RAPHE, honey.
So, yeah, so the RAPHE nuclei have serotonin neurons in them and they go all
over the brain.
And when we go in with an electrode to record the electrical activity, we would
say, oh, maybe there's two or three different kinds of neurons that use serotonin
in the RAPHE.
Well, it turns out now we've got techniques where we can take these neurons one
by one and analyze the genes that are turned on in each of those, in each
individual cell.
So there's like 20,000 genes in the genome.
A typical cell might express 12,000 genes, have those turned on.
And that varies a bit from neuron to neuron.
So you can say, how many flavors of serotonin neurons are there in the RAPHE?
Well, probably only some of those have to do with depression and some of them
have to do with other things.
Maybe some of the bad side effects that you don't want from your SSRIs.
So what this means is that this kind of knowledge, knowing all these different
subtypes, means that maybe that can be the basis of knowledge to develop
therapies that are more specific, that will work on the mood-altering serotonin
neurons and leave the other ones alone and be able to have us make a better
drug or a better therapy.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I wanted, yeah, I, I've loved a lot of your work.
I've saw, I saw you had a great conversation with Andrew Huberman and he was
just on recently.
He's very fascinating guy, a lot of information and he's great at, um, sharing
information out into the world.
I believe he's a great conduit for information.
Mm-hmm.
Um.
Thank you.