However, in July 2022, after Moncrieff published The Serotonin Theory of Depression: A Systematic Umbrella Review of the Evidence, she became public enemy #1 for establishment psychiatry and its apologists in the mainstream media, including Rolling Stone.
On July 30, 2022, Rolling Stone published an article about Moncrieff titled: Who Is the Psychiatrist Behind the Antidepressant Study Taking Over Right-Wing Media? However, Moncrieffs study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, is not an antidepressant study. Instead, the study is a systematic review of the empirical evidence for the serotonin theory of depressionwhat is commonly called the chemical imbalance theory of depression.
Specifically, Moncrieffs article is a comprehensive review of the empirical evidence for the relationship between depression and the neurotransmitter serotonin. Moncrieff and her co-researchers examined hundreds of different types of studies that attempted to detect a relationship between depression and serotonin (including studies of the relationship between depression and plasma serotonin, serotonin metabolites in other bodily fluids, serotonin receptor binding, serotonin depletion experiments, and the serotonin gene).
Moncrieff concluded that there is no evidence of a link between low levels of serotonin and depression, stating: We suggest it is time to acknowledge that the serotonin theory of depression is not empirically substantiated.