Classification of Antidepressants and Their Clinical Implications

Preclinical and clinical data provide information pertinent to the potency, efficacy, safety, and tolerability of antidepressant medications. Such data may serve as the basis of informed clinical decisions based on a rational approach to drug selection that is tailored to the patients’ needs. This article reviews comparative data on the binding potencies of antidepressants to receptors and transporters of serotonin and norepinephrine as well as physiologic measures of the effects of these drugs in humans.