The origin and progression of neuropsychiatric and physical disorders share multiple risk factors, which act along common biological pathways to produce overlapping outcomes as illustrated on the image.
Pathways of activated immune–inflammatory stress, oxidative stress and nitrosative stress appear to underlie many psychiatric disorders and physical diseases, including MDD.1,2,3
MDD=major depressive disorder
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One hypothesis of the cycle of anhedonia (loss of interest or pleasure) in patients with depression is illustrated in this image; this hypothesis comes from a series of experiments performed on a sample of psychology students.
As adjunctive treatment in MDD, some dopamine–serotonin receptor antagonists are associated with sedating side effects, while others are more often associated with ‘activating’ side effects.