why do some medicine take an hour to kick in and some like anti depressants take weeks to work?
In: Chemistry
The most common antidepressants are the serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and similar drugs. This means that in the brain, they block serotonin from being ‘vacuumed’ up, and leave it around to do its job longer. They do this right away, as soon as they are absorbed and get to the brain, just like other drugs. But since they don’t ‘work’ right away to help with depression, something else must being going on. What is happening is that the brain responds to more serotonin sticking around by altering itself. This means changing connections between neurons, changing how well neurons respond to serotonin, how much serotonin or other signaling molecules they make, etc. This is what takes time. We don’t know exactly how the brain is changing, just that something like this must be happening.
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