SSRI tagged posts

Classic antidepressants could help improve modern cancer treatments. They slowed the growth of pancreatic and colon cancers in mice, and when combined with immunotherapy, they even stopped the cancer growth long-term. In some cases the tumors disappeared completely, researchers at UZH and USZ have found. Their findings will now be tested in human clinical trials.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is also known as the happiness hormone because of its beneficial effects on mood. In depressed people, the concentration of serotonin in the brain is reduced. The hormone also influences many other functions throughout the body...

A new computational-model designed by researchers at UCL based on data from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown reveals that serotonin, one of the most widespread chemicals in the brain, can speed up learning.

Study provides insight into the role of serotonin in neural plasticity. A new computational-model designed by researchers at UCL based on data from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown reveals that serotonin, one of the most widespread chemicals in the brain, can speed up learning.

Serotonin is thought to mediate communications between neural cells and play an essential role in functional, and dysfunctional, cognition...

Sertraline. Credit: http://www.neurosoup.com/sertraline-zoloft/

The study – conducted in nonhuman primates with brain structures and functions similar to those of humans – found that the antidepressant sertraline, a SSRI, Zoloft, significantly increased the volume of one brain region in depressed subjects but decreased the volume of two brain areas in non-depressed subjects.

“These observations are important for human health because Zoloft is widely prescribed for a number of disorders other than depression,” said Carol A. Shively, Ph.D., professor of pathology-comparative medicine at Wake Forest Baptist.

METHOD: 41 middle-aged female monkeys were fed a diet formulated to replicate that consumed by many Americans for 18 months, during which time depressive behavior in the animals was recor...