why and how do anti-depressants fuck with libido and sexual drive?
In: Biology
Ok this is a very very basic explanation, and a lot of nuance is missing from this, simply because we don’t know it yet.
Essentially, serotonin is thought to be important for the inhibition of sexual function, because serotonin acts on the receptors for getting and maintaining an erection in the brain. When you take SSRI’s, your body keeps serotonin in the synapse longer, increasing the effects of it.
Again, we don’t know. This is a very understudied area of medicine. We know that it does, we think we know why and how, but there is nothing concrete.
it’s pretty complicated, and not really proven.
to keep it short:
you have multiple important messengers in the brain, among those for example: Dopamin and serotonin
for example SSRIs keep serotonine floating around in you brain. that makes you happy. but there is a balance to be had, and usually dopamine and others get reduced then. but they are responsible for you wanting to have sex.
there are some antidepressants that aren’t as bad as others in regards of sex impact, but they usually have other downsides.
Science can’t answer questions of why. Why did the Big Bang happen? Why do zebras have stripes? Why do plants use CO2 as a carbon source? They just *do*. We can devise theories about advantages and disadvantages behind observations, but those are really questions of what and how rather than why.
As for how anti-depressants interfere with libido, we don’t even fully understand how anti-depressants work to cure depression, other than they change the balance of neurotransmitters. It’s not the answer you want, but there’s a lot we don’t understand about how the brain or human sexuality works.
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