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Tranquilizer/Anxiolytics: Antidepressants

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NeuroPsychopharmacotherapy

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Abstract

For most anxiety disorders, antidepressants are considered to be the common first-line pharmacological treatment. Except for specific phobia, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) have shown to be effective for most anxiety disorders. Despite being less popular due to their safety profiles and adverse effects, other antidepressants such as tricyclic antidepressants (TACs) and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) have also been used in the past in treating anxiety disorders. Nevertheless, drug such as Bupropion, which is normally prescribed to treat major depressive disorder, is likely ineffective when treating anxiety disorders. In fact, apart from vilazodone and agomelatine, which have demonstrated some efficacy when treating patients with generalized anxiety disorder but have yet to receive FDA approval for this purpose, nearly all antidepressants which have been recently released fail to show sufficient efficacy for the anxiety disorders. Therefore, in order to properly choose a pharmacological treatment option which will feature an antidepressant specifically for patients with anxiety disorders, there should be a more comprehensive consideration of the patient’s prior response to a given medication, their preferences when advised of the efficacy and potential side effects, and finally the physician’s knowledge and expertise for each specific medication.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Gerasimos Konstantinou

  2. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Gerasimos Konstantinou

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  1. Gerasimos Konstantinou
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Correspondence to Gerasimos Konstantinou .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept Psychiatry , Psychosomatics & Psychotherapy, University of WĂĽrzburg, Medical School Clinical Neurochemistry, WĂĽrzburg, Germany

    Peter Riederer

  2. Inst fĂĽr Psychologische Medizin, Haag, Bayern, Germany

    Gerd Laux

  3. Fujita Health University School Medicine, Toyoake, Aichi, Japan

    Toshiharu Nagatsu

  4. Center Translational Res Neurol Diseases, Dalian Med Uni Shanghai Inst Health Sc Center Translational Res Neurol Diseases, Dalian, China

    Weidong Le

  5. WĂĽrzburg, Bayern, Germany

    Christian Riederer

Section Editor information

  1. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Stefan Kloiber

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Konstantinou, G. (2021). Tranquilizer/Anxiolytics: Antidepressants. In: Riederer, P., Laux, G., Nagatsu, T., Le, W., Riederer, C. (eds) NeuroPsychopharmacotherapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56015-1_163-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56015-1_163-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56015-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56015-1

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