On the slowness of action of tricyclic antidepressant drugs
| Autor: | Vlasta Brezinova, Ian Oswald, D. L. F. Dunleavy |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1972 |
| Předmět: |
Drug
Imipramine Time Factors media_common.quotation_subject Sleep REM Tricyclic antidepressant drugs Nerve Tissue Proteins Pharmacology Motor Activity Placebos 03 medical and health sciences Norepinephrine 0302 clinical medicine medicine Animals Humans 030212 general & internal medicine Depression (differential diagnoses) media_common chemistry.chemical_classification Brain Chemistry Neurons Therapeutic effect Brain Antidepressive Agents Self Concept 030227 psychiatry Rats Psychiatry and Mental health chemistry Action (philosophy) Anesthesia Synaptic Vesicles Psychology Rate of rise Tricyclic medicine.drug |
| Zdroj: | The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science. 120(559) |
| ISSN: | 0007-1250 |
| Popis: | Tricyclic drugs almost immediately affect the brain but relief from depression takes several weeks. Theories of the drug's action ignore this and rest upon acute experiments. The results of the 1965 Medical Research Council trial of imipramine are reassessed and in the imipramine-placebo difference it is noted that improvement began after two weeks. Rate of rise of plasma and tissue concentrations cannot explain the clinical time-course. Imipramine 75 mg. daily made 12 non-depressed volunteers rate themselves as depressed in the first week, but not in the third. This action, plus a steadily mounting `therapeutic' mechanism, could partly explain the lag to clinical improvement from depression. In human and rat brains there are effects of tricyclic drugs that (1) change gradually with weeks and others that (2) remain constant with weeks. The former imply synthesis of modified long-life, protein-containing components of neurones. Arnong neuronal amine mechanisms are some known to have life-spans of about a month, and in man experimental evidence indicates that some tricyclic drugs cause synthesis of modified cerebral components having a life-span of the same duration. The therapeutic effects of tricyclic drugs could therefore proceed through mechanisms of this kind. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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