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Originally Posted by JumpinJesus
This interests me. I wonder, since we don't hear about it in the way we hear about the negativity: are there people whose brain chemistry won't allow them to think negative thoughts? Are there some people who are unable to experience anger or sadness due to brain chemistry?
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Unfortunately, the way brain chemistry works, the opposite of the conditions that cause depression do not cause extreme or unabated happiness, they cause other very bad things. In short, what generally causes depression, neurochemically, is a lowered amount of serotonin (that's a vast oversimplification, but moving along...).
On the other side of the coin, higher than normal levels of serotonin do not just produce euphoria, they begin to cause many very bad physiological changes. For example: The drug ecstasy, while it may temporarily cause a sort of euphoria, causes many bad reactions, like the infamous high body temperature, increased heart rate and blood pressure, sweating, etc. In lower amounts, the effects are still widespread but the emotional spectrum doesn't shorten towards the positive... you can still have negative thoughts or reactions. The worst part is, the negative reactions you DO have will be severe, and most likely appear as anger, rather than sadness.
Increased levels of serotonin actually induce a very bad, and potentially fatal condition called serotonin toxicity.
From wiki, since it's easier to quote than write it all from scratch:
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Symptom [of serotonin toxicity/syndrome] onset is usually rapid, often occurring within minutes after self-poisoning or a change in medication. Serotonin syndrome encompasses a wide range of clinical findings. Mild symptoms may only consist of [highly increased heart rate], and shivering, [sweating], [dilated pupils], intermittent tremor or [muscle twitching], as well as overactive or overresponsive reflexes [more muscular issues with spasms and uncontrolled muscular movement like seen in parkinsons]. Moderate intoxication includes abnormalities such as [highly increased heart rate] and [abnormally high body heat]; a temperature as high as 40°C (104°F) is common in moderate intoxication. As well as the mild symptoms other features include hyperactive bowel sounds. The overactive reflexes and [involuntary muscular contractions due to sudden stretching of the muscle] in moderate cases may be greater in the lower limbs than in the upper limbs. Mental status changes include hypervigilance [(a state of anxiety that usually causes exhaustion)] and agitation.[3]
Severe symptoms include severe [increased blood pressure] and [increased heart rate] that may lead to shock. Severe case often have agitated delirium as well as muscular rigidity and high muscular tension. Temperature may rise to above 41.1°C (105.98°F) in life-threatening cases. Other abnormalities include [...] seizures [and] renal failure [...].
The symptoms are often described as a clinical triad of abnormalities:
* Cognitive effects: mental confusion, hypomania, hallucinations, agitation, headache, coma.
* Autonomic effects: shivering, sweating, fever, hypertension, tachycardia, nausea, diarrhea.
* Somatic effects: myoclonus/clonus (muscle twitching), hyperreflexia, tremor.
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Areas in [these things] are me replacing the medical terms with lay terms, just for those who might not know the medical terms.
So yeah... while drugs like LSD (acid), mushrooms, and Ecstasy cause an increased level of serotonin in the brain, hence the generally positive "trip", being at even somewhat higher than normal levels of serotonin for any length of time begins to cause muscle tremors/spasms, and increased blood pressure and heart rate. So really, any levels high enough to make a person "high" or artificially happy, would also be causing many problems all throughout the body that would eventually be a big problem for your health.
Also, increased levels of serotonin over a period of time can "burn out" the areas of the brain that manufacture it, causing a person who doesn't die from constantly high levels of serotonin eventually end up clinically depressed because they can no longer make serotonin at even normal levels. This is the "burnout" associated with people becoming "emotionally void" or depressed after frequent use of elicit drugs like ecstasy, mushrooms, and LSD.
In short, there's really no "happy medium" where the serotonin levels are higher than normal to produce some happiness/euphoria but without causing any damaging effects elsewhere in the body. There is certainly the ability for a person to live with serotonin levels slightly higher than others do, but it might only cause a propensity for positive thinking. Increasing the likelihood of positive thought and happiness isn't the same thing as blocking/lowering the incidence of negative thought and sadness. It just means that, given any situation, they're more likely to respond in a positive way than a person with lower serotonin levels.
/way too much information, but maybe it was helpful to someone, including Jinnkai who thinks most depression is caused by a person's inability to just "suck it up".
