Single dose of antidepressant can bring dramatic changes in human brain instantly

A new study has found that a single dose of antidepressant can bring significant changes in the human brain by influencing its functional architecture dramatically.

Scientists say it can affect the human brain at a much higher pace than it was previously believed by them.

The medical researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, carried a small-scale study in which they involved 22 healthy people without depression.

In order to get more accurate results, only those people were selected for the study who had never taken antidepressants before. The participants were given a dose of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI), a common type of antidepressant medicine that blocks the human brain from absorbing the neurotransmitter serotonin.

The participants were given a single dose of SSRI. Then the researchers looked at the brain functioning and found that the antidepressants had an obvious and near immediate effect on the participants.

“The results are surprising. We have not expected that the SSRI will produce a prominent effect on such a short timescale or for the resulting signal to encompass the entire brain.” said lead author Julia Sacher of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.

Previously the doctors and medical researchers believed that the antidepressant’s start showing effect for at least a few weeks.

The study researchers have sought for a more in-depth study to better understand the effect of antidepressants on the brain function of people with and without depression.

According to government reports, an estimated 19 million people in America struggle from the problem of depression which is a devastating and often debilitating mental condition.

The study’s findings are reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.

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Christina Langfold

Remember that weird girl in school who never quite managed to fit in? Who was always silent and strange? That was me during my entire teenage life. A few years after finishing college (with a degree in arts) I decided that the best way to become more sociable, while also feeling safe, is to test my people skills online.