Serotonin Transporter Occupancy and the Functional Neuroanatomic Effects of Citalopram in Geriatric Depression
Open accessAbstract
Objectives The functional neuroanatomic changes associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment have been the focus of positron emission tomography (PET) studies of cerebral glucose metabolism in geriatric depression.Design To evaluate the underlying neurochemical mechanisms, both cerebral glucose metabolism and serotonin transporter (SERT) availability were measured before and during treatment with the SSRI, citalopram. It was hypothesized that SERT occupancy would be observed in cortical and limbic brain regions that have shown metabolic effects, as well as striatal and thalamic regions that have been implicated in prior studies in midlife patients.Setting Psychiatric outpatient clinic.Participants Seven depressed patients who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria for current major depressive episode were enrolled.Intervention Patients underwent a 12-week open-label trial of the SSRI, citalopram.Measurements Patients underwent high-resolution research tomography PET scans to measure changes in cerebral glucose metabolism and SERT occupancy by citalopram treatment (after 8-10 weeks of treatment).Results Three different tracer kinetic models were applied to the [¹¹C]-DASB region-of-interest data and yielded similar results of an average of greater than 70% SERT occupancy in the striatum and thalamus during citalopram treatment. Voxel-wise analyses showed significant SERT occupancy in these regions, as well as cortical (e.g., anterior cingulate, superior and middle frontal, precuneus, and limbic (parahippocampal gyrus) areas that also showed reductions in glucose metabolism.Conclusion The findings suggest that cortical and limbic SERT occupancy may be an underlying mechanism for the regional cerebral metabolic effects of citalopram in geriatric depression.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The authors of 12 articles were contacted to obtain missing data, and four were able to provide the requested data.
“We contacted the authors of 12 articles to obtain missing data, four of whom were able to provide the requested data [31, 33, 35, 38]”
From The relationship between dose and serotonin transporter occupancy of antidepressants—a systematic review (2022) · cites this paper as [38]
Eight studies excluded participants taking other possibly interacting medications.
“Eight studies excluded participants taking other possibly interacting medications (e.g., other psychotropic drugs or substances with high affinity for SERT) [19, 31, 32, 37–40, 42].”
From The relationship between dose and serotonin transporter occupancy of antidepressants—a systematic review (2022) · cites this paper as [38]
There is no firm evidence that clinical efficacy or adverse effects are dependent on SERT occupancy; the included studies that measured the relationship between clinical effect and SERT occupancy did not find significant correlations.
“There is no firm evidence that clinical efficacy [1, 17, 45], nor adverse effects are dependent on SERT occupancy; the studies included in the present review that measured the relationship between clinical effect and SERT occupancy did not find significant correlations [17, 32, 37, 38, 48].”
From The relationship between dose and serotonin transporter occupancy of antidepressants—a systematic review (2022) · cites this paper as [38]
One study calculated occupancy using three different methods and found only minor differences between SRTM, MRTM-2, and logan, potentially indicating that the reference tissue model does not substantially bias SERT occupancy.
“one study calculated occupancy using three different methods, and found only minor differences between SRTM, MRTM-2, and logan [38], potentially indicating that the reference tissue model does not substantially bias SERT occupancy.”
From The relationship between dose and serotonin transporter occupancy of antidepressants—a systematic review (2022) · cites this paper as [38]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 45 · Cited by 32
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [12]First M Spitzer R Gibbon M Williams J Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV axis 1 disorders-patient edition (SCID-I/P) New York New York Psychiatric Institute 1995
- Authors
- Smith, G. S., Kahn, A., Sacher, J., Rusjan, P., van Eimeren, T., Flint, A., & Wilson, A. A.
- Affiliations
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CA)
- University Health Network (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Smith, Gwenn S.
- Venue
- The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-12
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1016-1025
- ISSN
- 1064-7481 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3968900
- OpenAlex
- W2144357260
- Cited by
- 32
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 3.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH 01621, R01MH064823, MH 64823, K02MH001621)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Biological Psychiatry › Tryptophan and brain disorders
- Keywords
- citalopram, geriatric depression, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, brain glucose metabolism, striatum, thalamus, limbic cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, regional brain metabolism
- MeSH terms
- Aged, Aniline Compounds, Brain, Depression, Female, Glucose, Humans, Male, Radioligand Assay, Sulfides, Citalopram, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, Positron-Emission Tomography, Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
