WJEC PY1 - Drug Therapy

Depression is though to be due to insufficient amounts of the neurotransmitter serotonin available at the synapse between the neurones that make up our nervous system. The biological approach therefore adopts a form of therapy that aims to alter these neurotransmitter levels in the hope that is causes behaviour to become more normal and reduce the symptoms of depression. Antidepressants are used to treat drugs and they either work by blocking the enzyme that breaks down the neurotransmitter serotonin or by reducing the reabsorption rate of serotonin back into the presynaptic cleft; both of these mechanisms will increase the amount of serotonin available at the synapse. The most commonly prescribed…