Fair point. The main usefulness of the Bhagwagar paper is that it shows changes induced by antidepressants (i.e. down-regulated serotonin-1A receptors) can persist for years after stopping the drugs.
This begs the question: what other long-lasting changes/effects caused by the drugs persist after stopping? Presumably these receptor changes are not the only long-lasting effects.
I do not know what causes withdrawal symptoms but the point is that it is biologically plausible that these drugs could cause long lasting symptoms for people because they can cause long-lasting biological changes. (Which is not the same as saying these symptoms must be caused by serotonin-1A receptor changes)
Fair point. The main usefulness of the Bhagwagar paper is that it shows changes induced by antidepressants (i.e. down-regulated serotonin-1A receptors) can persist for years after stopping the drugs.
This begs the question: what other long-lasting changes/effects caused by the drugs persist after stopping? Presumably these receptor changes are not the only long-lasting effects.
I do not know what causes withdrawal symptoms but the point is that it is biologically plausible that these drugs could cause long lasting symptoms for people because they can cause long-lasting biological changes. (Which is not the same as saying these symptoms must be caused by serotonin-1A receptor changes)
The same changes (down-regulated 5HT-1A receptors) are found in animals exposed to antidepressants in this paper where the changes persisted for more than a year in human equivalent time after a few weeks of exposure as well as more widespread hormonal changes :https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/34625/fphar-04-00045-HTML/image_m/fphar-04-00045-t002.jpg
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