[Drugs for stress]

Speaking of "drugs of stress" is difficult because stress is not a so precise concept. Moreover, the target is not simply the correction of physiological responses to a stimulus, but is the treatment of pathologies which are directly related with stress: post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and performance anxiety. Drug treatment of PTSD is not well codified, even if phenelzine and amitriptyline are, at least relatively, effective medicines. Beta-blockers remain today the main drugs for performance anxiety. Studies about the utility of carbamazepine and clonidine in these disorders are few. Experimental works upon the action of tianeptine on hippocampus cells lead to interesting results. The place of benzodiazepines and neuroleptics is still controversial.