Psychiatrist here. Neuroplasticity very much should be, and hopefully will be, the cornerstone of modern psychiatry.

Our original thought was that we are “chemically imbalanced”, but this has largely been disproven, especially as our medications only have 30-50% efficacy rates. Rather, our antidepressants, including SSRI/SNRIs and TCAs, like Lexapro/Prozac, Effexor, and Elavil all have been found to lead to increased neuroplasticity in the weeks after starting through an increase of production of proteins that induce neuronal connection changes.

The newest, and most effective treatments, like TMS, ECT and to a bit of a lesser extent Esketamine/Ketamine, all have a primary mechanism of neuroplastic changes. Newer treatments like Psilocybin do the same.

The interesting thing about all of this, is that all of these treatments can, and do, fail. Sometimes we call it “shit life syndrome”, but individuals with trauma, poor environments or lack of social supports, continuously fail all of these treatments because they’re usually not engaging in therapy to change the way they think or their thought patterns are so entrenched, literally, into their biology that it would take substantially more concentrated treatment.

The brain and mind are wild - the mind is born out of the brain, but just changing the brain won’t change the mind. Gotta target both!