Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) is a fancy name for a group of anti-depressants that people suffering from anxiety and depression can be put on.
Citalopram, Paroxetine, Sertraline, Dapoxetine, Escitalopram, Fluoxetine and Paroxetine (equally fancy names) are all SSRIs that are currently prescribed in this country.
How they work is by blocking serotonin (the happy chemical in your brain) from being reabsorbed after it’s done it’s job, meaning that it continues on it it’s journey of good vibes around the various nerve cells.
Anyways – SSRIs can help, a lot. Although anyone that’s been on them will know, the first few weeks can be tough, which is probably when you need them to work the most.
Now, a new study has actually confirmed that taking SSRIs can actually worsen anxiety during those first few weeks.
What happened was this; a group of researchers from the US gave some mice a mild shock to their paws (soz mice) and they found that this activated neurons in the dead posh-sounding Dorsal Raphe Nucleus – an area of the brain associated with mood and depression. The neurons then travelled to the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminals (yeah, talk dirty to me). This made the mice anxious, thus proving to the researchers that there is a manner in which serotonin can cause anxiety and not just the super groovy feelings we previously thought.
According to senior researcher Thomas L Kash, ‘The hope is that we'll be able to identify a drug that inhibits this circuit and that people could take for just the first few weeks of SSRI use to get over that hump’
In fact, they’ve already got something in the pipeline. The researchers managed to block the circuit and they watched the mice’ anxious behaviour drop off. 'We're now looking at the various proteins expressed by these BNST neurons, and we're hoping to identify a receptor that is already targeted by established drugs.’ Says Kash, ‘One of them might be useful for people as they start taking SSRIs.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.