The effects of paroxetine and other antidepressants in combination with alcohol on psychomotor activity related to car driving

Abstract

Acta psychiatr. scand: 80 (supp. 350): 45

The effects of most commonly prescribed second generation antidepressants on driving ability: a systematic review

“…SSRIs and the SNRI venlafaxine when given acute or subchronic, seem to be free of disturbing effects on psychomotor functions related to driving ability (Herberg 1994(Herberg , 2001, on driving simulator performance (Hindmarch 1997;Hindmarch and Harrison 1988;Mattila et al 1988;Linnoila et al 1993;Wilson et al 2002;Ridout et al 2003;Iwamoto et al 2008) and on-the-road driving tests (Ramaekers et al 1995;Robbe and O'Hanlon 1995;O'Hanlon et al 1998;Wingen et al 2005). However, one should keep in mind, that there are no patient data available that give information about causal relationships of SSRI monotherapy on driving ability.…”

“…These studies give information about the direct action of the drug per se, but limit to some degree the transferability to treatment effects in depressive patients under clinical conditions. Acute or subchronic use of citalopram (Herberg 2001), escitalopram (Wingen et al 2005), fluoxetine (Hindmarch 1997;Ramaekers et al 1995;Wilson et al 2002), fluvoxamine (Linnoila et al 1993), paroxetine (Hindmarch and Harrison 1988;Herberg 1994;Robbe and O'Hanlon 1995;Ridout et al 2003;Iwamoto et al 2008) had no negative effects on psychomotor measures, driving-simulator performance and on-road tests in healthy subjects. In one study long-term effects, i.e., 5-week administration of fluoxetine, were investigated (Wilson et al 2002), indicating no deleterious effects on driving-simulator performance in healthy subjects.…”

A translational, caffeine-induced model of onset insomnia in rats and healthy volunteers

“…However, the effects of zolpidem are much less pronounced or absent in single-dose studies involving young healthy subjects (Brunner et al 1991;Lancel 1999). Similarly for trazodone, improvements in subjective measures of sleep have been reported after several doses in primary insomnia (Walsh et al 1998), disturbed sleep (Haffmans and Vos 1999) and poor sleepers (Montgomery et al 1983) but not in healthy volunteers (Hindmarch and Harrison 1988). This indicates that artificial SOL prolongation is needed to predict hypnotic activity because the problem of demonstrating efficacy in healthy volunteer studies has the potential to delay the progression of potentially active drugs from the laboratory to the clinic.…”

The effects of escitalopram on working memory and brain activity in healthy adults during performance of the n-back task

“…This contradicts those studies demonstrating a post-SSRI improvement in cognition in healthy controls (e.g. Hindmarch and Bhatti 1988;Hindmarch and Harrison 1988;Hasbroucq et al 1997;Loubinoux et al 2005;Nathan et al 2000a,b;Harmer et al 2002), but is supported by the observations of some other investigations (e.g. Fairweather et al 1997;Hindmarch 1988Hindmarch , 1995Hindmarch and Kerr 1994;Nathan et al 2000b).…”

“…Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that SSRIs may actually facilitate psychomotor function (e.g. Hindmarch and Bhatti 1988;Hindmarch and Harrison 1988;Hasbroucq et al 1997;Loubinoux et al 2005;Nathan et al 2000a,b) and other aspects of cognitive function, such as information-processing capacity (Nathan et al 2000a,b). An early review of the effects of long-term drug administration in normal, healthy volunteers failed to find evidence of a significant effect on either short-term memory (STM) or long-term memory (LTM) after either TCA or SSRI treatment (Amado-Boccara et al 1995).…”