Keep Your Eye on Fluoxetine: Effects on Neuronal Plasticity in the Visual System

Although antidepressant drugs have immediate effects on levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, or both, the current hypothesis is that antidepressant efficacy depends on the promotion of hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptogenesis and increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). These investigators performed several experiments in adult rats (see also JW Psychiatry Jul 16 2007) to examine the effect of fluoxetine on functional changes in visual neuronal circuitry; response was assessed with visual evoked potentials.

First, the researchers studied the shift in ocular dominance in visual cortical neurons after monocular deprivation (MD). After 1 week of MD, fluoxetine-treated rats, but not vehicle-treated rats, demonstrated a marked shi…