Merits and demerits of antidepressant drugs

Abstract

The recently developed antidepressants are equal to the commonly used tricyclic antidepressants in clinical efficacy and are superior to them on safety. The mechanism of its action is generally believed to involve a change of monoamine-receptor sensitivity, caused by the effect to monoamine re-uptake at nerve terminals. It has been suggested that the role of monoamine such as Serotonin (5-HT) and Norepinephrine in clinical effects may contribute to mood-elevating and activity-improvement effects, respectively. The optimal choice of an antidepressant may be not difficult to determine according to above therapeutic response, in addition to sedative and anticholinergic ones. As an antidepressant is sometimes given to patients over a long time, less serious side effects such as anticholinergic reactions, cardiac toxicity and seizure-inducing effects should be desired. Furthermore, as the half life of most antidepressants is long, clinical effect will be achieved by medicating once a day. A rapid appearence of clinical effect, less side effects, reduction in sensitivity of serotonergic receptors and increasing catecholamine contents will be needed for the development of new antidepressants in the future.