How do antidepressants work? More specifically SSRIs
In: 5
‘Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors’ work in the brain to help lift your mood. Basically, your brain uses chemicals to send messages between cells. One of these chemicals is called serotonin, which helps you feel happy and relaxed.
When you’re feeling down or depressed, you might have lower levels of serotonin moving between brain cells. SSRIs work by blocking the “reuptake” or reabsorption of serotonin back into the cells that released it. This leaves more serotonin available to move between cells, helping to boost your mood and make you feel better.
Think of it like this: Imagine serotonin as a bunch of tiny boats sailing between islands (the cells). Normally, some of these boats return to their original island, leaving fewer boats to reach the other side. SSRIs essentially prevent many of the boats from turning back, ensuring that more boats reach the other island, making it a livelier place.
Brain cells are called neurons. They signal from one to the next using chemicals called neurotransmitters, over a small gap. There’s lots of different neurotransmitters, but one called called serotonin has a bunch of roles related to everything from digestion and sleep to mood and learning. So that you can reuse the neurotransmitters you release, those cells also have pumps that snatch them back from the gap. SSRIs mess with that pump temporarily, ensuring that serotonin stays in the gap longer, strengthening its signal.
What does that do, and why does it have antidepressant effect? Very complicated answer that we only partly understand. Potential explanations have included effects on neuroplasticity (making brain cells more able to grow and build connections), perception of positive vs negative stimuli, effects on REM sleep at night, decreased inflammation, and much more. There are probably multiple components that can be reasonably approached at different levels from molecule and cell to brain regions, and given how little in common two people diagnosed with “depression” can have, there’s no guarantee one answer will cover most cases.
The fact that many antidepressants act on serotonin doesn’t mean that there’s a deficiency to begin with, though there’s plenty of evidence serotonin plays some sort of role in the big picture of what depression is.
In your brain, between your nerves/neurons there are little cliffs (or chasms). One cliff where something comes from “pre-cliff” and where something goes to “post-cliff”.
Happy chemicals (carry information) go from pre-cliff to post-cliff. They either go back to pre-cliff so that the process can start again or are absorbed/deconstructed in the cliff/chasm.
SSRI inhibit the reuptake of Serotonin into the pre-cliff. The happy molecules can’t go back into the pre-cliff because the channel is blocked/obstructed my the molecule of the medication.
The happy molecules can only go back into the chasm and to the post-cliff. Touching the post-cliff gives this side information which is used to kickstart further actions resulting in your feeling happy.
Latest Answers