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Related Concept Videos

The Placebo Effect01:54

The Placebo Effect

The placebo effect occurs when people's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation. In other words, simply expecting something to happen can actually make it happen.
Antidepressant Drugs: MAOIs and Other Agents01:23

Antidepressant Drugs: MAOIs and Other Agents

Atypical antidepressants, including bupropion (Wellbutrin), mirtazapine (Remeron), nefazodone (Serzone), trazodone (Desyrel), and vilazodone (Viibryd), offer unique mechanisms of action. Bupropion weakly inhibits dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake, aiding depression treatment and smoking cessation, with a low risk of sexual dysfunction. Mirtazapine enhances serotonin and norepinephrine neurotransmission, leading to sedation, increased appetite, and weight gain. As a result, it helps treat...
Blind Procedures02:07

Blind Procedures

Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which child was...
Antidepressant Drugs: Tricyclics, SSRIs, and SNRIs01:28

Antidepressant Drugs: Tricyclics, SSRIs, and SNRIs

Tricyclic Antidepressants (TCAs), including Desipramine (Norpramin), Imipramine (Tofranil), Clomipramine (Anafranil), and Amitriptyline (Elavil), inhibit serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake and also block other receptors. They are used for depression, pain conditions, and insomnia. Common adverse effects include anticholinergic effects, sedation, orthostatic hypotension, and weight gain. They have a narrow therapeutic window and so require plasma-level monitoring. Abrupt discontinuation can...
Antidepressant Drugs: Overview01:25

Antidepressant Drugs: Overview

Antidepressant drugs are a class of medications primarily used for treating various mood disorders, including major depression, anxiety disorders, and other related conditions. These medicines work by modulating the neurotransmitter balance within the brain, alleviating depressive symptoms. Antidepressants can be broadly categorized into several groups according to their mechanism of action and chemical structure: Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), Serotonin-Norepinephrine...
Drug Therapy01:28

Drug Therapy

The advent of drug therapy has profoundly shaped modern mental health care, providing targeted treatments for a range of psychological disorders. Psychotherapeutic drugs, classified into antianxiety, antidepressant, and antipsychotic medications, address symptoms across anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and schizophrenia. While these medications have transformed patient outcomes, they require careful management due to their potential side effects and limitations.
Antianxiety Medications

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 16, 2026

How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants
08:50

How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants

Published on: December 14, 2014

Antidepressants and the placebo response.

Irving Kirsch1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX, United Kingdom. i.kirsch@hull.ac.uk

Epidemiologia E Psichiatria Sociale
|February 23, 2010
PubMed
Summary

New antidepressants offer little advantage over placebo for most patients. Exercise and psychotherapy show similar benefits without drug risks, suggesting they may be better treatment options for depression.

Area of Science:

  • Psychiatry
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Pharmacology

Background:

  • Antidepressant medications are widely prescribed for depression.
  • The efficacy of new generation antidepressants compared to placebo requires ongoing evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the efficacy of new generation antidepressants in relation to placebo response.
  • To assess the clinical significance of observed differences between antidepressants and placebo.

Main Methods:

  • Review of meta-analyses comparing antidepressant medication response with placebo response.
  • Inclusion of both published and unpublished trial data in the meta-analyses.

Main Results:

  • Most trials did not demonstrate a significant advantage of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) over inert placebo.

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Last Updated: Jun 16, 2026

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Conventional Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Depression: A Step-by-Step Protocol

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  • The observed differences between drug and placebo effects were not clinically significant for the majority of depressed patients.
  • U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) documents indicated a decision to withhold this efficacy information from the public and physicians.

    • Conclusions:

    • Exercise and psychotherapy demonstrate benefits at least equal to those of antidepressants.
    • Given the absence of drug-related risks, exercise and psychotherapy may represent preferable treatment choices for individuals with depression.