The Science of Happiness: Mood Genes, the Set Point, and the Search for the Perfect Drug

This report on mood-altering drugs swings ambivalently between a critique of the pharmaceutical industry and euphoric pronouncements that ""more perfect"" antidepressants--safer, with fewer side effects--are just around the corner. Nonetheless, Braun's central thesis is straightforward: for some people, mood-altering pharmaceutical drugs, if used judiciously, can effectively restore emotional functioning and balance; andn that critics who harbor a general distrust of such drugs suffer from ""pharmacological Calvinism."" Readers who want a quick overview of the latest neuroscientific research into how antidepressants and mood-elevating drugs work need look no further. Braun, a medical journalist and documentary TV producer, tends to view antidepressants like Prozac as useful mood-sculpting tools akin to alcohol and caffeine (the subject of his previous book, Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine). Blasting ""the drug company party line"" that presents depression as a simple matter of out-of-balance brain chemicals, he sets forth cautionary case studies, meant to illustrate how dishonesty, manipulation and corporate greed can corrupt drug development, approval and marketing. Braun also takes exception to biological psychiatry's view of depression as a solely neurochemically-based disease; he advocates a holistic approach to mental illness that recognizes that ""talk therapy"" is a vitally important component of the battle against depression. The most interesting part of the book is the nuanced epilogue, which details in diary-like fashion Braun's own successful experience with a new drug, Celexa, after Prozac and Ritalin failed. (Mar.)