A comparative examination of a role for serotonin in obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and anxiety.
Recent clinical and laboratory studies have suggested that changes in brain serotonin (5-HT) function may contribute to anxiety symptoms and anxiety-type behaviors. Among the anxiety disorders, perhaps the most compelling evidence implicating 5-HT exists for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In controlled trials, patients with OCD were markedly more responsive to treatment with 5-HT-selective uptake inhibitors such as clomipramine, fluvoxamine, or fluoxetine than to norepinephrine-selective or nonselective uptake inhibitors or to other psychoactive drugs. Studies with 5-HT agonists and antagonists also support a role for 5-HT in OCD. In this review, pharmacologic studies involving 5-HT-selective therapeutic and anxiogenic agents and non-5-HT-selective anxiogenic agents in patients with OCD are compared and contrasted with similar studies in patients with anxiety and panic disorder.
Murphy
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Laboratory of Clinical Science, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.
Pigott
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D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005239:Fear; D006801:Humans; D014179:Neurotransmitter Uptake Inhibitors; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010200:Panic; D012701:Serotonin / Q000502:physiology*; D012702:Serotonin Antagonists / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use
D014179:Neurotransmitter Uptake Inhibitors; D012702:Serotonin Antagonists; D012701:Serotonin