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On the Slowness of Action of Tricyclic Antidepressant Drugs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Ian Oswald ,
Vlasta Brezinova  and
D. L. F. Dunleavy
Ian Oswald
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH10 5HF, Scotland
Vlasta Brezinova
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH10 5HF, Scotland
D. L. F. Dunleavy
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH10 5HF, Scotland
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Extract

It is widely believed that tricyclic antidepressants such as imipramine bring little benefit for ten days, that three or four weeks are needed to be sure, and that five or six weeks are needed to get the patient really back to health. Why should it take so long? Is it even true? If true it seems remarkable that such a challenge should have been largely ignored by theorists content to rest their arguments upon acute experiments with animals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 120 , Issue 559 , June 1972 , pp. 673 - 677
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1972 

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