Years of Prozac Alter Lipids in Young Monkeys’ Brains: Study

Long-term administration of the antidepressant fluoxetine was tied to decreased concentrations of about 100 different brain lipids in adolescent macaques, hinting at a potential mechanism underlying the drug’s rare but severe side effects.

Written byJames M. Gaines

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Young macaques given the popular antidepressant fluoxetine for two years had lower levels of certain fatty acids and other lipids in their brains than ones not given the drug, finds a recent study (July 28) in International Journal of Molecular Sciences. The findings may help explain why younger people sometimes experience adverse side effects when taking the drug.

Fluoxetine, often sold under the brand name Prozac, is a prescription medication that can be given to adults as well as children as young as 7 or 8 years old. But there’s not good literature on the long-term impact of fluoxetine and other psychoactive drugs that we use to treat adult symptoms in the young brain, says Bita Moghaddam, a behavioral neuroscientist at Oregon Health & Science University who was not involved in the study, “so [it] was really nice to see that there is this level ...

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Meet the Author

James M. Gaines
James Gaines is a freelance science journalist in Seattle, Washington. He got his start at City University in London, where he received a master's degree in science journalism. Since then, his writing has appeared in outlets such as Nature, Undark, Atlas Obscura, and Knowable Magazine. He also works as a fact-checker and a regular contributor to the YouTube channel SciShow. He once had an alligator snapping turtle as a pet for about two hours.
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