Once people suffer from depression, they commonly think about depression medications or antidepressants as the solution. Depression treatment could be done by a combination of medications and various techniques like exercise, relaxation, and so on. Yet, people tend to select the easier option to get free from depression by using depression medication than any other options.

In fact, there are three main types of depression medications: Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, and Tricyclic Antidepressants. Currently, the depression medications are also including Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors and Serotonin. Those drugs are now clinically prescribed categories of antidepressants.

Tricyclic Antidepressants (TCAs)

Tricyclic Antidepressants, or TCAs are a few of the earliest depression medications, which are still commonly employed for treating depressive disorders. These drugs act by making the anti-depressant neurotransmitters (serotonin and norepinephrine) stay longer in the brain by preventing them from reabsorbing into nerve cells.

Currently, psychiatrists tend not to choose these drugs prescribe for patients of depression. This is because the health professionals has seriously criticised TCAs due to the numerous side effects of these drugs. TCAs has risky side effect that lead of increasing suicidal tendency in their users.

Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs)

Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors, or MAOIs, ease depressive symptoms by blocking the activity of monoamine oxidase, an enzyme-cum-neurotransmitter that burns up monoamines (serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine). It results the depletion of these natural antidepressant chemicals.

By preventing monoamine oxidase from destroying these neurotransmitters, MAOIs allow a greater supply of monoamines to the brain, as long as relief from depression. The main problem with MAOIs is that they also raise the blood pressure of the patient, posing the risk of bursting blood vessels in the brain. In addition, people taking MAOIs are expected to practice restraint in case of diets like cheese, cream, liver, some forms of meat, and sausages etc.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)

By the late 1980s, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, came in use as depression medications. These antidepressants work by blocking particular sites (receptors) on nerve cells that reabsorb (reuptake) the neurotransmitter serotonin-the low supply of which influence depressive symptoms.

SSRIs cause a longer availability of serotonin in the brain, alleviating depression by blocking these receptors selectively. While these are considered safer than other types of antidepressants like MAOIs and TCAs, SSRIs have their own side effects like nausea, headache, digestive problems, sleep disturbances, and nervousness etc.

Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs)

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