title: On the classification of antidepressant drugs.
abstract: Clinical, pharmacologic, and biochemical profiles of antidepressant drugs have been analyzed statistically. A method derived from multivariate statistics separates mere drug potency from the spectral information contained in the profiles. The dimensionality of the spectra is also reduced and this results in a diagram of associations and dissociations between the antidepressants and their scales of observation. The spectra of antidepressants show three poles which have been labeled as D (desipraminelike), A (amitriptylinelike), and M (MAOI). Clinical spectra agree better between one another than various pharmacologic spectra do. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors are readily differentiated from the tricyclic compounds. The latter appear in the sequence: desipramine, nortriptyline, imipramine, and amitriptyline. This sequence can also be reproduced from biochemical spectra of central and peripheral blockade of norepinephrine and serotonin reuptake.
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect / Q000187:drug effects; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000145:classification* / Q000494:pharmacology; D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic; D001007:Anxiety / Q000188:drug therapy; D006801:Humans; D008996:Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000378:metabolism; D012701:Serotonin / Q000378:metabolism; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents; D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic; D008996:Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors; D012701:Serotonin; D009638:Norepinephrine