The view that a chemical imbalance is the key to understanding and treating psychopathology has been dominant for years, but brain circuitry has become more popular as an explanation the past few years. What is your opinion and why?
Article Psychotherapy and the Brain: The Dimensional Systems Model a...
This is a very complicated question since neuroscience has not yet produced a sufficient understanding of brain circuitry to explain what really is happening. However, I don't think it is a question of which is more important as they are distinctly different. Both chemical and electric responses are physiological while brain circuitry is anatomical. They complement each other and both are involved. Circuitry may be defective and generate pathology that the chemistry cannot correct. Conversely one of the major chemicals may not be produced in sufficient quantity or its function may be limited by causes still not well understood. It's an interactive process.
It's probably impossible to separate the two completely, as any brain circuitry involves neurotransmitter systems. We need to consider single symptoms or groups of symptoms that are related to specific brain circuits, because alterations in one or two circuits will not explain the numerous and often diverse psychopathological phenomena we may observe in schizophrenia or depression. It is more likely to happen in primitive emotions such as fear and anxiety, while our language system for instance is more complicated. For schizophrenia, we have found particular brain circuits involved in specific symptoms, i.e. the Broca and Wernicke (language system) had pathologically increased perfusion in those subjects with severe formal thought disorders (see Horn et al. 2009 Br J Psychiatry) or alterations of the white matter tracts of the motor system in those patients presenting with hypokinesia (Walther et al. 2011 Neurobiol Dis, Bracht et al. 2013 Schizophr Res). Thus, brain circuitry seems to explain certain psychopathological symptoms more in detail than the general dopamine hypothesis. However, also at the systems level neurotransmitters will be involved, but currently we don't know which ones.
I think that the social problem might have played a role for depression. How can you explain that our ancestors did not suffered from psychopathological disease. In thosedays, everyone was living in same condition regardless social status and income. They did not have any fear and anxiety to survive. This is not a scientific ,but a philosohical comment!
Certainly, it's the systemic (!) function that one has to look at! The brain - as the body, organism as a whole - "uses" its physiology and its makeup to secure and process certain ("wished-for") functions, and produce supposedly useful or wanted results. In a kybernetic system, the organism would "play" with its hardware (including genes, epigenetic methylizations, overall and current physiology, body composition, trait and state...), and software, to come to this said result, i.e., approximating and - possibly - converging actual values and index values.
However, even the index values are not homeostatic (in a purse sense), but rather allostatic, that is, dynamic, complex and non-linear, and "pulsating".
Thus, not the linear dynamics of single molecule activity patterns are important in complex systems, but rather the systemic functions or dysfunctions (or "coping" mechnisms that seem to be dysfunctional from one perspective, but maybe not from another...) and the results THESE produce. And this may be particularly true for organisms (e.g. humans) facing allostatic stress, perturbations, "dysregulation" and dis-ease.
Jaak Panksepp was one of my grad school professors - yes, I also recommend his book "Affective Neuroscience". Thanks all for the interesting discussion!
This is a very complicated question since neuroscience has not yet produced a sufficient understanding of brain circuitry to explain what really is happening. However, I don't think it is a question of which is more important as they are distinctly different. Both chemical and electric responses are physiological while brain circuitry is anatomical. They complement each other and both are involved. Circuitry may be defective and generate pathology that the chemistry cannot correct. Conversely one of the major chemicals may not be produced in sufficient quantity or its function may be limited by causes still not well understood. It's an interactive process.
For those with an interest, our article published last month in AIMS Neuroscience provides a detailed account of posited cortical circuitry based on dynamic cortical column formation. This description of the microcircuitry provides support that the same columnar model that applies to depression, anxiety, etc. also serves to explain the cognitive/memory aspects of schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer's.
Article The Role of Dynamic Columns in Explaining Gamma-band Synchro...
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