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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2016 Jan 11;26(3):397–410. doi: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2015.12.039

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Effect of SSRI treatment on the 5-HT1A receptor. Efficacy of SSRI treatment putatively occurs through down-regulation of the raphe 5-HT1A autoreceptors (red squares) that is seen after chronic treatment. These autoreceptors act to inhibit 5-HT postsynaptic neuronal release. Sustained administration of 5-HT1A agonists or SSRIs induces the internalization of 5-HT1A autoreceptors in the raphe nucleus of the midbrain (note reduction of 5-HT1A autoreceptors as treatment progresses from ‘acute’ to ‘chronic’. The reduction in autorecep-tor inhibition following chronic SSRI treatment allows increased neuronal firing and thus, more serotonin to be released. It is this subsequent increase in serotonin release in which SSRIs are able to exert their anxiolytic and antidepressant effects. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)