Why antidepressants take weeks to show their benefits ?

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Hello

Few days ago I read that scientists have finally figured why antidepressants take weeks to start showing their effects. According to the study SSRI’s increase the synaptic density and many more things which I didnt understand. I am curious to know what this study tells because I was a SSRI user for 2 years and am excited to know what this study tells.

[https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/why-antidepressants-may-take-weeks-to-show-benefits/](https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/why-antidepressants-may-take-weeks-to-show-benefits/)

[https://scitechdaily.com/brain-plasticity-ssris-breakthrough-on-how-antidepressants-work-why-they-take-weeks-to-kick-in/](https://scitechdaily.com/brain-plasticity-ssris-breakthrough-on-how-antidepressants-work-why-they-take-weeks-to-kick-in/)

Peer reviewed study – [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-023-02285-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-023-02285-8)

Thank you

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Think of your neurons like tiny bubbles. They don’t actually touch, and they communicate with each other by sending different kinds of even tinier bubbles to the next bubble in line. When they finish telling the next bubble what’s going on, they go back to their home bubble.

These tinier bubbles are called neurotransmitters, and most antidepressants make it so that after the message has been delivered some of the neurotransmitters don’t return home. In the case of SSRIs, the flavor is serotonin.

We don’t know if depression gets better in some cases because there’s more tiny serotonin bubbles floating between the big neuron bubbles and that does something, or if the big bubbles have to make MORE serotonin bubbles and so having more total does something, or if something COMPLETELY different is happening because of all that.

Depression is almost certainly more than one thing, but we don’t understand the brain well enough to be and to tell why things like that happen, in the same way that you can have two people that have a fever but have completely different illnesses. In that same way, just because we can treat one person’s fever with a particular medicine doesn’t always mean it will work for the other person! We just don’t know how to tell what’s causing the ‘fever’ when we’re talking about brain stuff yet.

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