Can thinking too much about certain things like about other peoples feelings, your own social mistakes that you try to fix immediately, trying to think what the other person is thinking from their reactions, or trying to think too much of what to say next in conversations which can make things awkward.

When we feel stressed, anxious or depressed, our brains may be releasing or absorbing (re-uptake) chemicals either too rapidly or too slowly. If left untreated, a chemical imbalance disorder may increase in severity as time passes.

Most modern methods for treating chemical imbalances come in the form of prescription medications. Drugs like Paxil, Prozac and Effexor are believed to have a direct effect on key neurotransmitters. Though these drugs work in about 60% of individuals who take them, patients often report experiencing a wide variety of side effects, and the drug manufacturers themselves aren't even sure how the drugs actually work to 'rebalance' chemicals in the brain. Users of these drugs often report relapse, as the drugs fail to address the underlying causes of anxiety.

The question that needs to be answered before doctors move too hastily in prescribing medications to their patients is : What is the cause of the chemical imbalance?

To answer the thread title: yes. Though this imbalance may be seen as a positive quality in some subculture.

And I agree with you: to see chemical imbalances as causal - of whatever problems the person is having - is naive, or really a mercenary profit seeking interpretation. It's just poor thinking to treat it as causal and to, as rapidly as is done now, 'balance' the person through chemicals. Talk about pushers.

They will look back on this period with as much consdescension as we current look back on the 'leeches' and the barbers and their medical practices.

Clinical Depression is often said to be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and this is what most drug treatments are based on. Certainly in many cases, there is a reduction in the amount of certain neurotransmitters found (monoamines such as serotonin and norepinephrine) in depressed people.

However, low serotonin levels are simply another symtom of depression, not a cause. The more negative introspection you carry out, and the fewer pleasure-giving activities you participate in, the lower your serotonin levels become.

The hormonal imbalances related to depression are to do with our natural reactions to stress, and stress and depression are certainly linked. But does this hormonal imbalance actually cause depression?

It is true that depressed people often have increased levels of stress hormones in their bloodstream, but again, this is a symptom, not a cause.
When you ruminate, or introspect in a negative way, you create emotional arousal that causes the release of stress hormones. That night, in REM (dream sleep), you become emotionally aroused again as dreaming 'flushes out' the emotional arousal from your brain.

That is why depressed people have higher levels of stress hormones, and also why you can wake up feeling exhausted.

the thinking too much causes the imbalance or the imbalance causes the thinking too much (aka obsessing)

All good points. And it sounds like a plea from the Cognitive therapy side of things to look a little deeper before you toss pills at the sad.

Sexual abuse as a child, as one example, will also lead to greater liklihood of, for example, depression as an adult. Toss some pills in to the person and you are not getting at the cause but at the symptoms.

It is treating the brain like a car engine.

It's shit with all this front line pill assault on brains.

I had severe ups and downs but now that I'm on Lithium and Wellbutrin I'm a fairly happy camper. That means those chemicals were somehow not in my system to help my bipolar disorder but after getting it balanced I'm much better today than before I took them. Chemicals we have in our bodies sometimes get screwed up in many ways , I'm just thanful there is help that saved my life by getting those chemicals back in balance. I thank all those who found out and made this improvement in the quality of my life.

Yes... of course.

I plan on taking two Diazapam soon for sleep. Why does this affect me? Because they cause a natural disturbance in my head...

... actually, it isn't ALL THAT natural.

References?

I'm not sure how this thread ended up in the Biology and Genetics subforum, either.

Mania is a form of thinking too much. I am sure you can google your way to a reference.

The term “thinking too much” is an absurdly unscientific and subjective notion. To describe the well-characterised psychiatric condition of mania as such is nonsense.

You’re sure I can? I’m not so sure. In fact I’m not going to try because I’m pretty certain there are no such references. I asked you to provide references to substantiate your proposition that:

Even ignoring, for a moment, the absurdly unscientific notion of “thinking too much”, I still don’t think the answer is yes. The neurons in our brains are “thinking” (ie. signalling to each other) every second of every day of our lives. How is “thinking” supposed to pathologically alter neurotransmitter signalling?

Mania:
My emphasis.
If you want to be fussy and anal, sure, thinking too much is pretty loose. Though you will find the DSMIV description to also be something interpreted very differently by differen professionals. The above is not from the DSMIV, but it serves....what is 'rapidly' for example - if we are talking about neural phenomena, are they actually more rapid in mania on a neuronal level? which is where you seem to want to take us.


Of course there are thousands of references to Bipolar Disorder and the related chemical imbalances related to it.


Why don't you try it and see what happens?
Try obsessing - and OCD is another pattern with related chemical imbalances - about an encounter you have just had or one coming up. Try to come up with things that might go wrong - the anxiety disorders also - what you may have forgotten to do. If you make a serious attempt to do this you will notice physiological changes in your body. Try whatever you would interpret 'thinking too much' to mean and see if you can't notice physiological changes and perhaps, imagine or intuit that in fact these changes, generally unpleasant ones, will be reflected on hormonal and neuronal and neurotransmitter levels.

Imagine what will happen if this is your regular pattern of response and or anticipation and it is easy to see how this leads to, correlates with, or is caused by chemical imbalances.

If you and I were debating in a scientific conference, fine, the OP's terminology is loose and needs to be defined, but here in this mixed forum, I find it hard to take your response seriously. It is quite fair to say that thinking too much will lead to emotional and physiological changes and these will have chemical imbalances associated with them. That's what the 'too much' will lead to. l You can see that, can't you?

I don't know what profession you're in, but right now we are talking about what I do for a living. I can tell you that what most people mean when they say 'thinking too much' does create or is associated with chemical imbalances in the brain.

MMmmm... that depends on whether you are straining the brain to such an extent, it is MADE to reduce to phenomenal factors.

i think it is down to the lifestyle and what people's perception is of the place around them and if they keep thinking over they start forgetting the good things about themselves, but then again everyone is different. All anyone has to do when they to much is to do things they enjoy, but usually its down to lifestyle.

Good, it’s nice that you agree.


That’s right, it isn’t. And I don’t need to look up the actual DSM IV definition of mania to know that it doesn’t include “thinking too much” as part of the diagnostic criteria.


Yes, I know. I did not deny the role of aberrant neurotransmitter signalling as an underlying cause of psychiatric disorders. I simply said that the original premise in the OP, and the one you seem to be defending, is inaccurate, if not completely wrong. I am highly sceptical that “thinking too much” causes any pathological alteration in neurotransmitter signalling.

The description of mania that you provided:

…is a result of alterations in neurotransmitter signalling, not the cause of such alterations.

So the premise in the OP should be turned around to say that chemical imbalances in your brain results in “thinking too much”, not the other way round.


Obviously. Once again, I never said that there wasn’t some level of conscious control over nervous system functioning. Of course there is.


This is the assertion for which I want a reference – your assertion that such behaviours lead to permanent/pathological alterations rather than simply transient ones.

And it’s also interesting that you slipped in the phrase “correlates with or is caused by”. Firstly, I shouldn’t have to point out that correlation does not imply causation. If a regular pattern of response or anticipation simply correlates with altered neurotransmitter signalling, then this doesn’t make your case that "thinking too much" causes chemical imbalances. Secondly, if we selectively use some of your conditional phrases and read your statement like this

....then this is contradictory to other things you've said and is exactly what I'm trying to say!!!


Yes, transient changes reflecting normal nervous system functioning. What I’m saying is that this will not lead to pathological changes that underlie the sort of psychiatric conditions you have mentioned (OCD and mania). I don’t know this for a fact. It’s just not my understanding and, as such, I’m after some substantiation. I’m prepared to be proven wrong – it wouldn’t be the first time. If you know otherwise, then give me a reference. This should be easy judging from your statements.


Well, seeing as you’ve brought it up, I’m a professional neuroscientist. I am a research scientist in the area of neurotransmitter signalling in the CNS, specifically the functioning of downstream second messenger molecules and gene activation resulting from G-protein coupled receptor activation. More specifically again, I research neuronal intracellular responses to acetylcholine signalling through muscarinic (M1,3,5 versus M2,4) receptors.


Once again, “associate with” does not imply causation, ie. that “thinking too much” causes pathological changes in neurotransmitter signalling that underlie the sort of psychiatric conditions you have mentioned (OCD and mania). That's what you appear to be arguing and that's what I'm questioning.

You simply haven’t made your case. Enlighten me!