BACKGROUND The safety and tolerability of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and the newer atypical agents have led to a significant increase in antidepressant use. These changes raise concern as to the likelihood of a corresponding increase in adverse behavioral reactions attributable to these drugs. METHOD All admissions to a university-based general hospital psychiatric unit durin...

Antidepressant medications have eased the suffering of millions of people. In addition to treating depression, antidepressant drugs also treat several anxiety disorders. Unfortunately, there are problematic limitations with antidepressant agents, including a delayed therapeutic response and insufficient efficacy. Emerging evidence shows that atypical antipsychotic agents can be used as augmenta...

BACKGROUND Deaths from antidepressants continue to account for a substantial proportion of drug-related deaths. AIMS To investigate the relative toxicity of the major classes of antidepressant drugs, with the specific objective of assessing this in relation to the cause of death; and to analyse the deaths where there were multiple mentions of antidepressant drugs or other psychoactive drugs w...

BACKGROUND Antidepressants are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in primary care in England and their use is increasing. This is largely due to longer durations of treatment of depression. Observational studies have shown some differences in adverse outcomes associated with different antidepressant drugs but relatively little is known about their relative safety particularly with long te...

F or at least four decades, the field of psychoimmunology has attracted numerous investigators based on diverse hints linking the immune system to emotional behavior. The administration of cytokines for the treatment of various diseases is often associated with depression, which frequently accompanies autoimmune disease. Now, in PNAS, Greengard and colleagues (1) report a specific molecular pat...

BACKGROUND It is widely believed that in randomized controlled trials of antidepressants the difference between drug and placebo response rates is rather small (around 20%), leading to a common perception that antidepressants have limited efficacy. AIM The aim of the present paper was to present an alternative calculation and interpretation of antidepressant-placebo difference in the treatmen...

introduction: depressive disorder is a prevalent psychiatric disorder, which affects 21% of the world population. the presently using drugs can impose a variety of side-effects including cardiac toxicity, hypopiesia, sexual dysfunction, body weight gain, and sleep disorder. during the last decade, there is a growing interest in the therapeutic effects of natural products on mental disorders. am...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to establish the relative safety and balance of risks for antidepressant treatment in older people. The study objectives were to (1) determine relative and absolute risks of predefined adverse events in older people with depression, comparing classes of antidepressant drugs [tricyclic and related antidepressants (TCAs), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor...

An eight-channel surface stimulation system, designed for paraplegic stepping was adapted for paraplegic cycling on a newly developed tricycle. The stimulation system consists of two four-channel modules an Inter Integrated Bus (I2C) to RS232 interface for direct stimulator control and data exchange and a standard laptop computer. A software package for personal computers with a comfortable gra...