Depression is a major illness. While its precise prevalence is unknown, some 400,000
patients are treated annually in the USA and suicide is rated as the tenth greatest cause of …

The clinical efficacy of both the tricyclic antidepressants and the monoamine oxidase (MAO)
inhibitors was discovered by chance in the 1950s. Since then, the unravelling of the …

The need to develop new antidepressants has been motivated by the frequency and
potential severity of the adverse effects of the tricyclic and monoamine oxidase inhibitor …

This review considers the various modes of action and possible advantages of the different
types of second generation antidepressants. The biochemical changes that may be causally …

Present antidepressants are all descendents of the serendipitous findings in the 1950s that
the monoamine oxidase inhibitor iproniazid and the tricyclic antidepressant imipramine were …

Until 1980, the two major classes of antidepressant drugs were the tricyclics (TCAs) and the
monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). During the 1980s several additional classes of …

A relationship between brain monoamines and endogenous depression is suggested by
observations on the mode of action of drugs producing or alleviating depressive symptoms …

The symptoms of depression can be improved by agents that act by various mechanisms to
increase synaptic concentrations of monoamines. This finding led to the adoption of the …

1. Several lines of evidence implicating some dysfunction or alteration to brain serotonergic
systems in depressive states are summarized. 2. 2. Some aspects of the interactions …

Clinical implications of mechanisms of action of antidepressants Page 1 APT (2000), vol. 6, p.
178 Leonard Clinical implications of mechanisms of action of antidepressants Brian Leonard …