ReviewFrontiers in psychiatry2025
Could antidepressants increase mood and immunity at the same time?
Review in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Trial
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A review of scientific literature suggests that the use of antidepressants can be broadly extended to address various forms of stress and inflammation as an adjunctive therapy that enhances host resistance. While the effects of antidepressants on mood are well-documented in terms of their emotional, cognitive, and behavioral impacts, these aspects do not fully explain their cellular mechanisms of action. At the cellular level, antidepressants exert trophic effects that promote neurogenesis and synaptic connectivity. Studies demonstrate that antidepressants improve cell survival, enhance stem cell proliferation, and reduce danger perception (mood effects) in depressed patients and animal models of depression. These trophic properties highlight a deeper biological mechanism beyond their mood-related benefits. The acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) theory of mood offers a more compelling explanation of the cellular effects of antidepressants compared to the monoamine hypothesis. Antidepressants functionally inhibit the ASM enzyme, thereby reducing the production of ceramide, which directs cells toward increased survival, cytoprotection, and reproduction, as well as improved mood. This review also highlights research demonstrating that antidepressants enhance host resistance to infections, immunological challenges, stress, and depression. These findings support the potential use of antidepressants to bolster host resilience in scenarios involving infections, vaccinations, cellular aggression, stress, depression, and even aging.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.