Vortioxetine: probably not for me

According to a post on LessWrong by contributor Katja Grace, vortioxetine—an antidepressant marketed as a more targeted alternative to older treatments—didn't work. Grace ran a rigorous personal experiment: taking the drug for a year while logging her mood most days. The result? Her average mood before starting the drug matched almost exactly with her mood after a year on it, to a single decimal point. The plot twist: in the first week after starting, and again after the first dosage increase, she noticed a sharp mood improvement—from mostly threes and fives to mostly sixes and sevens. But antidepressants aren't supposed to work that fast; they typically take weeks to build up in your system. Other mental health measures like anxiety and crying stayed the same or worsened. Grace concludes the drug didn't help, but raises a genuine puzzle: why do antidepressants sometimes seem to work immediately, exactly when they shouldn't?

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton