Definition
Antidepressants are small heterocyclic molecules entering the circulation mostly after oral administration and passing the blood–brain barrier to bind at numerous specific sites in the brain. They are used for treatment of depression, panic disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other psychiatric disorders and nonpsychiatric states.
Mechanism of Action
Most available antidepressants enhance neurotransmission of biogenic amines, mainly norepinephrine and serotonin, to a lesser extent dopamine. Once released from specialized vesicles at the presynaptic nerve terminal, neurotransmitters enter the synaptic cleft and bind to respective receptors at the postsynaptic cell membrane, thus modulating the associated signaling cascades (Fig. 1). Additionally, some of them bind to presynaptically localized receptors that regulate the amount of...
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Anghelescu, IG., Heuser, I. (2021). Antidepressant Drugs. In: Offermanns, S., Rosenthal, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Molecular Pharmacology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57401-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57401-7_8
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