Acute Psychosis after Administration of Bupropion Hydrochloride (Zyban™)

A new model of the disrupted latent inhibition in C57BL/6J mice after bupropion treatment

“…Chronic bupropion treatments induced symptoms of psychosis in 5% of participants (Johnston et al 1986;Howard and Warnock 1999;Neumann et al 2002), and we sought to mimic clinical conditions by chronic bupropion treatment in mice. Chronic treatment with this antidepressant disrupted LI in mice, modeling an established schizophrenia-like phenotype.…”

“…Although bupropion antidepressant efficacy has been shown on humans (Fabre and McLendon 1978;Zung 1983) and animals (Cooper et al 1980;Steru et al 1987), there have been several reported cases of bupropion-induced psychosis (Johnston et al 1986;Howard and Warnock 1999;Neumann et al 2002). Exacerbation of psychotic symptoms by bupropion may be related to its effect on the DA system.…”

A Severe Case of Bupropion Hydrochloride Extended-Release Monotherapy-Associated Visual Hallucinations and Delirium in a Female Patient with Major Depressive Disorder

“…For example, rapid improvement associated with the augmentation strategy has been described in relation to olanzapine and risperidone in previous studies. 20,21 These studies suggest that the augmentation effect of atypical antipsychotics may depend on the antidepressant being in place, a mechanism postulated to explain lithium augmentation of antidepressant drugs in unipolar depression. De Montigny and colleagues, 22 describing a case series of eight patients who responded rapidly to lithium introduction after having failed to respond to a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA), suggested that TCA pretreatment sensitized the serotonin receptor to create an antidepressant effect and then lithium increased the efficacy of the central serotonergic system.…”

“…Previous reports of transient psychotic symptoms due to bupropion predominantly involved cases of overdose, 3-7 combination therapy, 8,9,14 or high therapeutic doses, 10,[17][18][19][20] with patients frequently presenting with comorbid psychiatric and/or medical disorders. An interesting point is that the majority of these cases involved female patients, suggesting an increased vulnerability of the female gender to bupropion-induced psychotic symptoms.…”

Acute Psychosis After Bupropion Treatment in a Healthy 28-Year-Old Woman

“…His symptoms appeared at a 300-mg/ day dose and resolved with discontinuation of bupropion. 4 There are 2 hypotheses regarding bupropionassociated psychosis. The first is related to bupropion's effect on dopamine inhibition.…”