Do selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors acutely increase frontal cortex levels of serotonin?
Beyer CE; Cremers TI Depression and Anxiety Research, Discovery Neuroscience, Wyeth Research, Princeton, NJ 08543, USA. beyerc1@wyeth.com Selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) exert their effects by inhibiting serotonin (5-HT) re-uptake. Although blockade occurs almost immediately, the neurochemical effects on 5-HT, as measured by in vivo microdialysis, have been a matter of considerable debate. In particular, literature reports yield conflicting neurochemical results in the rat frontal cortex. Thus, while some groups consistently find increases in extracellular 5-HT levels following acute SSRI administration, others reproducibly report an absence of these acute serotonergic effects. In an attempt to unravel this apparent discrepancy, we combined published literature with in-house microdialysis experiments. When we plotted the lateral stereotaxic coordinate of the dialysis probe against published reports on the acute effects of fluoxetine a clear correlation was revealed. Where
