Posted: Mar 29, 2011 3:16 pm
Mr.Samsa wrote:
A few niggles I have with your argument though:
1) Despite my cleverness and well-readness, I'm not actually expected to have read every single article that has ever been written.
2) You haven't specified which paper by Brodie and Gessa that you thought was important. I'm sure that between the two of them they've written a handful of papers, many of which are to do with the effects of serotonin on the brain.
3) Just because an author writes on a similar topic (i.e. serotonin and sexual behavior) does not mean that their research is necessarily important to the work at hand. For example, in the paper in the OP, the introduction of serotonin to the brain (like the paper you presented) is only tangentially related, hence why the discussion of such research only earned itself half a paragraph in the introduction.
4) When we read the paragraph that mentions research in this area, we find that instead of mentioning the "seminal" research that you linked to, they instead cited the actual seminal research on the topic - that is, they cited the original research which preceded the work of Fiacco, Brodie and Gessa. Specifically: Ferguson, J. et al. “Hypersexuality” and behavioral changes in cats caused by administration of p-chlorophenylalanine. Science 168, 499–501 (1970), and Malmnäs, C. & Meyerson, B. p-Chlorophenylalanine and copulatory behaviour in the male rat. Nature 232, 398–400 (1971).
5) Since the effects of introducing serotonin to the brain and observing effects on sexual behavior was only a minor point, these two papers would have sufficed to make their point, but they also included a third reference; Salis, P. & Dewsbury, D. p-Chlorophenylalanine facilitates copulatory behaviour in male rats. Nature 232, 400–401 (1971), which cites nearly every relevant paper ever written by Gessa, Tegliamonte, and Brodie.
6) The Del Fiacco paper you linked to has only been cited 11 times since 1974. It's such a minor paper that a peer reviewer would probably ask people to remove references to it, especially when making such a tangential point.
Summary: I think you've misunderstood the aim of the experiment in the OP, and you've done a poor review of the literature by failing to correctly identify the seminal work in the area you thought you were researching.
Mr.Samsa,
To my eternal damnation, I have to admit you are a Master of Debunking. Actually -- as I have written in a previous post -- had you been given the opportunity to meet Einstein you would have debunked his fuzzy Theory of Relativity.
But, in any case, I will try and answer your criticism point by point.
1) Right: only the more important.
2) Yes, I did mention the paper in Science, 1969, but since it was inaccessible, I had to cite the one written in 1974.
3) The actual annoying part is the assertion by the Chinese researchers of their work being the first one to demonstrate the role of serotonin on mammalians' sexual behavior: which is obviously untrue.
4) No comment.
5) No comment.
6) I have answered at point 2 my reasons for citing the 1974 paper.
Summary. It's your opinion which, of course, I respect but don't accept.
Back on scientific ground, I will say that, IMHO, serotonin has no role to play in sexual preferences in mammalians, man included. The indiscriminate and frenzied copulatory behavior of serotonin-depleted male animals could be due to an "aphrodisiac" effect of suppressing a sex inhibitor. In other words, the mirror image of what happens when you increase brain serotonin levels by administering a SRI such as fluoxetin to humans, i.e., no orgasm, no or delayed ejaculation.
Amusingly, in an article for the Los Angeles Times and entitled "The enduring myth of Aphrodisiacs ," Joann Rodgers writes:
"...evidence of aphrodisiac effects lacks scientific credibility. It is largely, if not wholly, anecdotal, inferential, spotty and unconfirmed.
A few years ago, for example, experiments by Gian Luigi Jessa (sic), a pharmacologist in Sardinia, created something of a sensation with reports that a diet free of tryptophan, a nutrient found in milk, cheese and other dairy products, caused lab animals to become oversexed, apparently by depleting them of serotonin, a brain chemical important in mental activity.
But no similar results have been reported in human or additional animal studies. And it's not even clear that such experiments have been done."