[Specifics of a dual action: toward new and more effective antidepressants?]

Depression raises numerous questions that are pathophysiological, diagnostic and epidemiological as well as therapeutic. Amongst those questions, antidepressant drugs and their action mechanism(s) remain the subject of many studies in all fields, with a view to enhanced management of patients suffering from mood disorders. Numerous hypotheses both neurobiological and pharmacological have been advanced with respect to the neurochemical mechanisms involved in depressive disease and the neurobiological impact of antidepressants. In addition to the aminergic hypotheses which are currently the best supported, numerous arguments tend to show the value of taking into account the overall function of the brain and no longer only considering a single neuronal system. In this context, the value of a dual specific action on the main two central aminergic systems, the noradrenergic and serotoninergic systems, has now emerged.