Kashish Sharma
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Written By: Kashish Sharma | Published : January 25, 2023 9:34 PM IST
As per the lead author, antidepressants have therapeutic effects and does not impact cognitive abilities.
Antidepressants are medicines that are used to treat depression. They have been found to be effective in treating the symptoms and are mostly well-studied and safe to use. Though some side-effects are associated with the medicines that might eventually improve with time. A study has shown that one potential side-effect of antidepressants could be they "emotionally blunting" or emotionally numbing the person consuming them.
The study found that the volunteers become less responsive to both positive and negative feedback after taking a certain class of antidepressants for three weeks. However, it is usually recommended to continue the treatment if the benefits outweigh the side effects. Antidepressants usually affect neurotransmitters. Two common classes of antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) with the former most widely used.
The study was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology and involved 66 subjects who were given either an SSRI drug or placebo prior 21 days before the onset of cognitive tests. The subjects were disease-free (not having depression). After three weeks, the volunteers were asked to face learning and memory tasks. The learning test involved hit and trial method where the subjects were offered a reward system. The subjects were to choose between two stimuli and received positive and negative feedback accordingly. The study found that participants who took the antidepressants in place of placebo were 23 per cent less responsive to stimuli of either kind. As per the research lead, these medicines can take away the negative emotions of a person but also snatch away some of the joy. As per researchers, no other harmful effects were observed on other cognitive abilities.
The research author Catherine Harmer of the University of Oxford said that the intention of the findings is not to mislead people or to suggest that one must stop taking the medication. According to her, though they found emotional numbing in around 60 per cent of participants it could be an overestimated value. She also stressed that the medicine has a therapeutic effect and no side effects were observed on other cognitive abilities.
