Antidepulants have a strong effect on the male brain – with the nature of the effect on the basis of the age of the subject – but the female does not affect the brain, a new study of mice has shown, suggesting that such drugs need to discover more physical effects, something that may eventually affect how they are used in treatments.
Neurohormone serotonin plays a large role in shaping emotional passages in the brain, due to which its regulation is a common goal of antidepressants. Selective serotonin reeptake inhibitors (SSRI) are the most prominent intervention for depression, anxiety and other neurocycatric disorders, and as a result allows for more serotonin in the brain.
Fluoxetin – commonly known by brand names such as Prozac, Fladac and Sarafam – is most widely used for all ages including pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, children and adolescents. The study examines the long -term effects of fluoxetine in the mind of the rat when administered at an early age, leading to a series of conclusions that raise more questions than the answer.
The early administration of the drug opposed the change in the male brain for a long time-when administered just after birth, mice became more concerned over time; When the teenage is administered during the window, when they reach sexual maturity, they develop less concerned and depressive behavior. Additionally, researchers also saw changes in neuron structure in the brain, changes in energy production by mitochondria, and activation of gene expressions or a group of genes. Most surprisingly, only male mice were affected by the drug. Female mice were given medication at the same time, windows showed no long -term changes in behavior, brain structure, mitochondria or genetic manifestations.
“Fluoxetine is the most common drug given to individuals below 18, as well as pregnant women due to their good risk-gain profile, but people have not worked on these specific windows of administration in a systematic way to evaluate long-term effects yet,” Utkarash Gai, the key writer of the paper said that TIFR-Mumbai has a postDock. “Our findings prove the window of the administration of these antidepressants and the gender of the individual, all these variables really matter.” The findings were published in the magazine of organic psychiatry.
What did the study show
The primary findings of the study suggest that the age at which antidepressants are given affects their effects, sometimes increases the tendency of depression and resulting in what they are going to do.
The team of TIFR scientists determined to examine the effects of fluoxetine on the brain before and after the sexual hormones became active, dividing their young mice into two groups-the mice in the post-post-groups were among the mice that were 2-21 days old, while the teenage groups were 28–48 days. In humans, these conclusions translate into windows of age but important time-Post-Natal is equivalent pedagogy, until sexual hormones appear from the third trimester to a few years of age; And adolescents will refer to the age of the onset of sexual hormones (usually the year of adolescence), until the complete development of pre-fruit cortex in the brain, or up to the age of 25 years.
“We know for some time that serotonin levels play a big role in shaping emotional circuitry over the long periods, especially when they fall around in a developing brain,” the study’s leading investigator Vidita Vaidya said that the professor of neurobiology in TIFR. “Because SSRI passes through placental barrier in pregnant women and enters the fetus’s brain, as well as being transmitted through breastmilk as well as enough clinical data that indicates that we need to look more closely to the effects related to these age.”
The behavior was immediately seen with mice when they reached adulthood (aged 3 to 6 months). The teen -administered group showed increased flexibility and curiosity, more detection of their test settings and demonstrated low despair and anxiety behavior. But mice that were given drug in the postpartum group, postpartum group, as adults, were shown to be very increased disappointment and anxiety.
“We saw a very long lasting effects, seen in these mice for 18 months,” Vaidya explained (rats live for about 24 months). “Changes in such strong behavior occur immediately, which is likely to be associated with the broadcast of signals in the brain, and possibly in the architecture of neurons”.
Indeed, the authors found that in the postpartum group, there was a strong atrophy and physical erosion of neurons or nerve cells in the brain that transmits signs, with an accurate adverse effect in the juvenile group. When he examined changes in genetic manifestations or identified which sets of genes were affected, he saw different changes in two groups – which were associated with synaptic architecture, which to do with neurons firing in the brain, and which are associated with mitochundary regulation. Mitochondria, known as the powerhouse of the cell, was also strongly affected by opposite methods in the experiment. For the postpartum group, it was again adversely affected, both the ability to produce energy and the ability to produce the total energy produced, both decreased. This led to a decrease in bioenezee production, resulting in reduced physical metabolism and reduced energy to set fire to the brain for neurons. For the teenage group, both were promoted. Both groups were close to every 500 genes, which were indigestion, resulting in indigestion (increase in production of gene products such as proteins) and downgradation, but it appears that the only four genes between the two sets are common. The affected genes were involved in metabolism and immune response. “The results are blowing up,” Ghai said. “The whole process put us on our toes, especially when we found such a clear difference in a downstream molecular routes that needed to explain.”
The male brain may reverse, but the female brain is completely unaffected
The early contact of SSRI on the brain will require treatment and potentially reversal to such prolonged lasting and adverse changes, so the team also studied the effects of nicotinamide or vitamin B3- known to promote mitochondrial functions- when these mice are administered as adults.
Surprisingly, he found that many of the adverse effects seen in postpartum mice were completely reversed, restoring their metabolism and their disappointment behavior.
The other most important discovery from the study was that all the impact described only appeared in adult male mice. The female rat’s brain was completely spared with any effect in adulthood. “We saw similar changes for both men and women in the early window immediately after administration, but for female mice, the effects were not long lasting. As long as they reached adulthood, there was no effect.
Possible causes for this may require further studies, or genetic differences from sex chromosomes by estrogen and other female hormones, or other reasons, further studies.
“Sex-selective effects are a great surprise,” in addition to psychiatry in Neemans, Professor Biju Vishwanath said, unaffected by studies. “There is no difference between men and women in therapeutic effects when talking about antidepressants, so these conclusions are important. But mainly who stands out, there is a difference between two -age windows. In practice, in practice, we administer these drugs to patients under 5 or 6 years of age who are depressed. So it is important for such functional changes.
He also said that the ability to reverse these effects with vitamin B3 is an important discovery.
“As a psychiatrist, these studies are important for us to be able to prove and validate that these drugs make physical changes in brain and mitochondrial function, and have a great impact on practice.” Vaidya also said that when some postpartum mice were given fluoxetine in the adolescent window, their effects were neutralized-they had neither better nor worse effects, reflecting the age of interference with antidepressants.
“If a pregnant woman is suicidal or a new mother has a post-portam depression, she still needs to be treated with SSRI.” It may potentially induce or deteriorate suicidal ideas in those children because they enter adulthood. Timely interference with vitamin B3 is also helpful in treating adverse effects in life. “
Sandhya Ramesh is a Bangalore -based science journalist and writer.
