Antidepressant Drugs

Antidepressants are among the most frequently prescribed agents in medicine. They are a highly effective, relatively safe, and nonaddictive class of therapeutic agents. Antidepressants do not elevate mood in nondepressed people and have no abuse potential. Their primary use is in the treatment of major depressive disorder, although many antidepressants have other established uses such as in the treatment of anxiety and eating disorders.

Our understanding of antidepressants mechanism of action relates to the monoamine hypothesis of depression. This hypothesis suggests that depression follows a dysfunction of one or more of the monoamine neurotransmitters including norepinephrine (NE), serotonin (5-HT), and dopamine (DA). It follows, therefore, that antidepressants work by increasing monoamine-mediated neurotransmission in one or more ways. The three most established hypotheses for mechanism of antidepressant ...