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Common antidepressants make about lhalf of your users feel emotionally “dull” and apparently scientists discovered the reason.
In a study published today, they show that drugs affect reinforcement learning, an important behavioral process that allows us to learn from our environment.
The UK National Health Service (NHS) says that more than 8.3 million patients in England received an antidepressant medication in 2021/22.
They refer to a widely used class of antidepressants, particularly for persistent or severe cases, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
These drugs target serotonin, a chemical that carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and has been called the “pleasure chemistry.” Common SSRIs include citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), paroxetine (Paxil, Pexeva), fluoxetine (Prozac), and sertraline (Zoloft).
Patients are “emotionally bored”
As reported, one of the widely reported side effects of SSRIs is ‘dullness’, where patients report feeling emotionally bored and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to.
In fact, approximately 40% to 60% of patients taking SSRIs experience this side effect.
According to the Sitechdaily review, most studies of SSRIs so far have only examined their short-term use, but for clinical use in depression, these drugs are taken chronically, over a longer period of time. dragged on.
A team led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen administered escitalopram to healthy volunteers, an SSRI known to be one of the best tolerated, for several weeks and evaluated the impact.
Participants took the drug or placebo for at least 21 days and completed a comprehensive set of self-report questionnaires and they were administered a series of tests to assess cognitive functions, including learning, inhibition, executive function, reinforcing behavior, and decision making.
The team found no significant differences between the groups when it came to “cold” cognition, such as attention and memory. There were no differences in most of the tests of “hot” cognition: cognitive functions that involve our emotions.
The team discovered that participants taking escitalopram were less likely to use positive and negative feedback. This suggests that the drug affected their sensitivity to rewards and their ability to respond accordingly.
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