Posted by Nick on April 10, 1999, at 13:50:01
In reply to Re: Dysthymia/Treatment Resistant Depressions, posted by anne on April 9, 1999, at 22:24:58
> I'm a little confused about Nick's remarks lumping Effexor and Paxil into the neuroleptic category and would appreciate clarification here. I thought the action of neuroleptics was to decrease DA in the brain.
Sorry for the confusion! Effexor & paxil are not neuroleptics - nor is amisulpiride at low dose. I was simply tring to list a few drugs that have mood altering proerties and also an action on DA transmission. I should have mentioned amphetamines, which have powerful effects on DA release.
The difficulty with 'simple' i.e. one step theories like the monoamine hypothesis and also with our simplistic explanations of how the drugs work is that they often ignore the fact that if you do something to the brain - alter a transmitter release rate, for instance - it does something back - like modify receptor sensitivity. The theories also take no notice of the fact that monoamine systems talk not only to each other, but to other chemical systems, both between neurones and intraneuronally. I fear we are a long way from understanding it in any real way.
poster:Nick
thread:4588
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990501/msgs/4652.html