Antidepressants may also suppress love and romance

While antidepressants are already known to cause libido-inhibiting side effects, a new theory suggests they also fundamentally alter the chemistry of love and romance.

Wired reports that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – the most commonly prescribed antidepressants – are widely known to cause sexual dysfunction, but they may also snuff the first sparks between two people otherwise destined to ride into the sunset on a white horse, and prevent couples from bonding.

Rutgers University biological anthropologist and pioneer of the modern science of love Helen Fisher said to Wired, "There's every reason to think SSRIs blunt your ability to fall and stay in love."

Helen Fisher: The science of love

A blunted sexual appetite is surely a small price to pay for some people facing grinding, paralysing depression, but antidepressant use is becoming more common - being used to treat comparatively minor disorders such as anxiety or even insomnia – with the implications for stunting love disturbing.

SSRI antidepressants boost levels of serotonin and decrease levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that may play a central role in romance.

Newly attached couples experience a jump in dopamine levels at the mere sight of each other, and if they stay in love those brain patterns stay active.

However, reduced dopamine levels reduce the very possibility of love, argues Fisher.

Clinical studies of side effects caused by antidepressants focus on sexual problems, which are far easier to measure than chemistry between two people.

University of Virginia psychiatrist James Thomson suggests the possibility of romantic stunting be considered when deciding whether antidepressants should be prescribed to a child or young adult.

"Does it impact the development of those areas of the brain involved in love and sexuality? Does it impair the feelings and behaviours of romantic love and sexuality and the learning processes, which might be required to bring those areas of the brain online? We don't know" said Thomson to Wired.

"We want to know about the side effects of other drugs. Why not know about the side effects of these drugs, which affect our reproductive future?" added Fisher to Wired.

Next generation antidepressants are in the works that will raise dopamine and serotonin levels simultaneously, which may have fewer side effects – but none of them are yet on the market.