The Development of Antidepressants : The Chemistry of Depression

Everyone has blue days but for people with depression, these days can seem never ending.

Fortunately, several treatment options are available to help improve the symptoms of depression.

Antidepressants are some of the most important, even though scientists and physicians still don't completely understand why they work.For the past fifty years, the hypothesis that chemical imbalances in the brain lead to depression has influenced how scientists research, design, and develop antidepressants.

Antidepressants target the smallest of molecules and cells in the brain, the neurotransmitters, the complex connections between nerve cells that form the brain's extensive information network.Researchers still don't understand exactly what causes depression.

Meanwhile, though, scientists from across many disciplines - neuroscience, biology, chemistry, and psychiatry - continue a worldwide collaborative effort to identify the key features of the brain that may lead to the discovery of a cause, and still more successful treatments, for depression.