Kety, Seymour

Louis Sokoloff, Richard L. Wechsler, Kent Balls, and Seymour Kety, J. Clin. Invest., 29, 847 (1950). 

For a more extended discussion, see Seymour S. Kety, "Cerebral Circulation and Metabolism," in Biology of Mental Health and Disease, Paul B. Hoeber, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1952, pp. 2031. 

So in the hands of Joseph Schildkraut and Seymour Kety, the hypothesis became decreased biogenic amine efficacy = depression. Its corollary was increased biogenic amine efficacy = antidepression. So simple. So clear. So basically correct. But so incomplete. And so unsatisfying because (a) we don t really know how or why biogenic amine deficiencies develop in depression, and (b) we don t really know why the antidepressant effects take so long to kick in. The synaptic deficiencies, if any, must be corrected immediately, but the desired clinical consequences are not. What s going on ... 

Seymour Kety was the first to measure the blood flow to the brain of a human being, applying the Pick principle after injecting nitrous oxide (N2O), a diffusible gas, into a cerebral artery, and then measuring the difference in tracer concentrations in the arterial blood going to the brain and in venous blood coming from the brain. 

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