[PEN-L:27266] Re: Re: Prozac & Productivity

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

There was a fine science column in last Friday's WSJ -- on the way
environment turns genes off and on. For example, if you've been without
sex for awhile and are expecting to get some tomorrow your beard may
grow faster: sexual activity triggers a flow of testosterone, but
apparently even thinking about it can do the same thing. And rats that
are licked a lot by their mother when pups are more curious and less
subject to panic than other rats -- because the licking turns on some
genes.

Prozac is one of the SSRIs -- Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.
But there has always been a puzzle. It begins to inhibit the uptake of
serotonin in about 24 hours -- but it doesn't began to affect mood for
three weeks or more. (There is some recent research to the effect that
for some patients it only begins to work after about six months -- I
don't remember this exactly but it was in Medscape some months ago.) So
its direct effect on serotonin is probably not the reason it works. A
tentative hypothesis is that it works by altering gene expression
causing sprouting of new neurons or remodeling synapses.

This all comes from a "new technology of microarray analysis, in which
'gene chips' reveal which DNA in a sample of tissue is expressed and
which is quiescent."

In other words technology is beginning to show that macro features of
the environment are _part_ of genetic causation; a huge new pile of data
to support the argument in Levins & Lewontin's _Not in Our Genes_ --
it's in the environment which turns on some genes and turns off others.

Carrol

Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> But he says that placebos work as well.  You could read the article to
> support national health care.
>
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 10:53:47AM -0700, Eugene Coyle wrote:
> > A WSJ columnist, Holman Jenkins, today praised Prozac et al for raising
> > worker productivity. ....