All In The Mind on Radio 4 this week included an interview with Molly Crockett from the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cambridge on how a particular group of anti depressants, SSRIs, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, have been found to increase morality by raising the levels of Serotonin in the brain. The particular experiment involved healthy volunteers who, after taking SSRIs, were found to be even less willing to choose the trollyology option of pushing one large man off a bridge in order to save the lives of five others from a runaway train.
Last week’s
Bottom Line, also on Radio 4 discussed the merits of youth versus experience in the workplace. Presenter Evan Davis remarked that he was certain that his own judgement was very much better now than it was twenty years ago.
So I am wondering who were the volunteers in the neuroscience experiment. If they were the usual undergraduate guinea pigs, perhaps SSRIs merely provide some counterbalance to the impetuosity of youth, impart just a little of the wisdom of age.
