Effects of escitalopram on synaptic density in the healthy human brain (2023)

From the abstract:

> Our findings suggest that brain synaptic plasticity evolves over 3–5 weeks in healthy humans following daily intake of escitalopram. This is the first in vivo evidence to support the hypothesis of neuroplasticity as a mechanism of action for SSRIs in humans and it offers a plausible biological explanation for the delayed treatment response commonly observed in patients treated with SSRIs.

Read about this study in an article and I thought it was interesting. I’m not a doctor, and my understanding the topic is purely based on my reading about it for curiosity’s sake. But I’ve always been curious about how SSRI’s work and how they are, seemingly, still pretty mysterious. It is fascinating to me that we’ve managed to make something that (save for the roughly 30% of people for whom they have no effect) works, yet we don’t quite know why.

I also think the neuroplasticity hypothesis is really interesting, and makes me wonder about how these drugs may change the way someone thinks in general, outside the specific realm of depression / anxiety.