Author: Irene Mazis
Position: Ms
Institution: none
E-mail: squiggle@sympatico.ca
Additional Authors: none
Submitted Date: July 16, 2006
Published Date: July 18, 2006
This comment was originally posted as a “Reader Response” on the publication date indicated above. All Reader Responses are now available as comments.

That depression should be reversed chemically and thereby create an "abnormal brain state" is a tautological proposition.

Drugs have to create an abnormal brain state, if the normal brain state was one of an illness such as mania, depression, neurological damages from any number of causes. In alleviateing these conditions antidepressants both cure and cause abnormal brain states.

However, if you mean that the abnormal state created by a drug is irreversible or chronic, then that is a different question about the effect of the drug on the brain, and a loaded question at that.