A scientist explores: What if we could inoculate people against depression and trauma? [ideas.ted.com]

Porter Jennings-McGarity 1/20/224:00 AM

By Karen Frances Eng, Image: Anson Chan, IDEAS.TED.COM, November 11, 2021

When approaching diseases, scientists usually look for two things — ways to cure them and ways to prevent them.

But with mental illnesses, we have neither. For example, SSRIs are the most popular antidepressant medications, but they only suppress symptoms. Yet pharmaceutical research has focused almost entirely on fine-tuning these drugs rather than looking for ways to prevent mental disorders from occurring in the first place.

That may change, thanks in part to work done by neuroscientist (and TED Fellow) Rebecca Brachman PhD.

Eight years ago, Brachman stumbled upon a drug that proved to protect against the detrimental effects of acute or chronic stress — a potentially paradigm-shifting discovery that’s opening up a new field of preventative psychopharmacology.

[Please click here to read more.]

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