Early Exposure to Antidepressants Affects Serotonin Transmission

About 15 percent of women in the U.S. suffer from anxiety disorders and depression during their pregnancies. However, little is known about how early exposure to antidepressant medications might affect their offspring as they mature into adults. About 200,000 babies born in the U.S. per year are exposed to antidepressants during gestation via transmission from their mothers. In a recent study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers from UCLA studied early developmental exposure to two different antidepressants, Prozac and Lexapro, in a mouse model that mimicked the medication exposure during a human third trimester. Researchers found that, although these serotonin-selective reuptake inhibiting antidepressants (SSRIs) were thought to work the same way, they did not produce the same long-term changes in anxiety behavior in the adult mice. The mice exposed to Lexapro had permanent changes in serotonin neurotransmission and were less anxious as adults than the mice exposed to Prozac. “This was quite surprising, since these medications belong to the same drug class and are believed to work by the same mechanism. The implications of these findings are that with additional investigation, it may be possible to identify specific antidepressants that are safer for pregnant women,” explained the study’s lead author. To read more about this study, click here.