SSRI Drugs (Prozac) Worsen Prenatal Stress And May Contribute To Autism

[haidut]

I am posting this study because it may explain why the incidence of autism is much higher in male than in female offspring. As I posted in a few other threads before, serotonin is one of the likely direct causes of the autism pathology and it is of course elevated during chronic stress. Unfortunately, it is very common for doctors to prescribe SSRI drugs to both the pregnant mother (to prevent postpartum depression) and to the young child if it is showing signs of autism. As the study below shows, SSRI drugs like Prozac (fluoxetine, FLX) actually worsen the effects of prenatal stress in male offspring, and I would not be surprised as a significant number of so-called clinical autism cases are due to the prenatal and postnatal SSRI exposure of both mother and (male) child.

Increased symptoms of illness following prenatal stress: Can it be prevented by fluoxetine? - PubMed - NCBI

"...Stress during pregnancy is associated with lifetime negative consequences for the offspring. The present study examined the effects of prenatal stress on symptoms of illness following an immune challenge in mice. Additionally, this study examined whether pretreatment with fluoxetine (FLX) could prevent the effects of maternal stress on illness symptoms. Mice prenatally exposed to stress, with or without FLX were administered with saline or endotoxin. In males, prenatal stress significantly augmented endotoxin-induced body-weight loss and reduced food consumption; prenatal FLX did not prevent these responses, and, in many cases, augmented them. In females, prenatal stress worsened endotoxin-induced suppression of sucrose intake, and prenatal FLX reversed this effect. These findings provide the first indication of altered response to an immune challenge following prenatal stress and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment. These results may have implications for health and well-being of offspring exposed to stress during pregnancy."

 

[aguilaroja]

The SSRI Citalopram dosed perinatally gave lab rat offspring autistic-like behaviors, and made made fish offspring more aggressive but less mobil.

Good thing that water is free of SSRI’s, eh @haidut. Oh, wait…
SSRI Make Organisms Demented, Violent & Homicidal, Even At Low Doses

Perinatal exposure to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor citalopram alters spatial learning and memory, anxiety, depression, and startle in... - PubMed - NCBI
“Cit-exposed rats also showed increased marble burying, decreased time in the center of the open-field, decreased latency to immobility in forced swim, and increased acoustic startle across prepulse intensities.… The results are consistent with citalopram inducing several ASD-like effects.”

Developmental exposure to the SSRI citalopram causes long-lasting behavioural effects in the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). - PubMed - NCBI
“Feeding behaviour was tested as the number of bites against a piece of food and found to be increased in the exposed fish. Aggression levels were measured as the number of bites against a mirror image during 10 min and was also found to be significantly increased in the exposed fish.”
“Locomotor activity was significantly reduced in the exposed fish.”

 

[haidut]

The SSRI Citalopram dosed perinatally gave lab rat offspring autistic-like behaviors, and made made fish offspring more aggressive but less mobil.

Good thing that water is free of SSRI’s, eh @haidut. Oh, wait…
SSRI Make Organisms Demented, Violent & Homicidal, Even At Low Doses

Perinatal exposure to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor citalopram alters spatial learning and memory, anxiety, depression, and startle in... - PubMed - NCBI
“Cit-exposed rats also showed increased marble burying, decreased time in the center of the open-field, decreased latency to immobility in forced swim, and increased acoustic startle across prepulse intensities.… The results are consistent with citalopram inducing several ASD-like effects.”

Developmental exposure to the SSRI citalopram causes long-lasting behavioural effects in the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). - PubMed - NCBI
“Feeding behaviour was tested as the number of bites against a piece of food and found to be increased in the exposed fish. Aggression levels were measured as the number of bites against a mirror image during 10 min and was also found to be significantly increased in the exposed fish.”
“Locomotor activity was significantly reduced in the exposed fish.”

Very sad, as with all this evidence floating around the medical bozos are still scratching their head as to what could possibly be causing autism...
Oh, btw, Koveras posted a study in the thread about SSRI making crabs honicidal. His study showed SSRI are estrogenic as well, so we can add ambiguous gender to the list of issues prenatal exposure to these drugs can cause.
In fact, I think there are quite a few studies on prenatal exposure to finasteride or SSRI causing ambiguous gender and removing heterosexual preferences.

 

[aguilaroja]

If public interest rather than commerce was fashionable, some endocrine or neuro-ecologist could gather and elaborate findings:

An AOP analysis of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for fish. - PubMed - NCBI
“…an increase in aggression in response to SSRI treatment has been documented to occur in some mammals (Kiryanova and Dyck, 2014; Svirsky et al., 2016; reviewed by Glick, 2015), an effect that is occasionally been measured in fish (Morando et al., 2009; Weinberger and Klaper, 2014; Wolkers et al., 2016).”

“However, in response to more chronic waterborne exposures (14-28 days), increases in estradiol have been measured in goldfish and Japanese medaka (Foran et al., 2004; Mennigen et al., 2010a). In males, reduced synthesis of oxy-androgens and testosterone has been measured (Mennigen et al., 2010a; Fernandes et al., 2011). These disruptions in the HPG axis in response to SSRIs in male fish have been shown to lead to reductions in spermatogenesis in zebrafish (Prasad et al., 2015b), delayed development of external adult sexual morphology (Henry and Black, 2008), decreased milt volume (Mennigen et al., 2010a), modulation of the testes and feminization as indicated by induction of the egg yolk protein vitellogenin (Schultz et al., 2011).”