What causes chemical imbalance in the brain and how can it be treated?
Chemical imbalance is one theory about the cause of mental illness. Other causes that are debated include psychological and social causes. The basic concept is that neurotransmitter imbalances within the brain are the main causes of psychiatric conditions and that these conditions can be improved with medication which corrects these imbalance. The phrase originated from the scientific study of brain chemistry. In the 1950s the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and tricyclic antidepressants were accidentally discovered to be effective in the treatment of depression[. These findings and other supporting evidence led Joseph Schildkraut to publish his paper called “The Catecholamine Hypothesis of Affective Disorders” in 1965 Schildkraut associated low levels of neurotransmitters with depression. Research into other mental illnesses such as schizophrenia also found that too little activity of certain neurotransmitters was correlated to these disorders. In the scientific community this hy
