Antidepressants may cause emotional blunting: Study

London: Common antidepressants can cause many users to feel emotionally ‘blunted’, according to a study that offers new insights into how the drugs work and their possible side-effects.

The research, published on Monday in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, shows that the drugs affect reinforcement learning, an important behavioural process that allows us to learn from our environment.

A widely-used class of antidepressants, particularly for persistent or severe cases, is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These drugs target serotonin, a chemical that carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and has been dubbed the ‘pleasure chemical’.

One of the widely-reported side effects of SSRIs is blunting’, where patients report feeling emotionally dull and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to, the researchers said.