September 15, 2015

expert reaction to SSRI antidepressants and violent crime

Publishing in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers have used data from Sweden to assess the impact of antidepressants on violent behaviour by people with depression. Using data from over 800,000 people, the scientists compared rates of violent crime while individuals were prescribed with SSRIs versus when they were not. These Roundup comments accompanied a briefing.

Prof. Gitte Moos Knudsen, Vice-President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) and Professor of Neurobiology, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, said:

“This is an interesting paper with a large sample size. Importantly, however, there is no evidence for causality, i.e., that SSRI intake makes you conduct violent crime. It is well-known that persons convicted of violent crime have higher incidences of psychiatric disorders, including personality disorders, bipolar disorder and depression.

“Based on neuroscience data, a causal relationship is also counter-intuitive. There is in fact evidence that low brain serotonin is associated with increased impulsive aggression. Our group recently completed a study of impulsive aggressive inmates and several of those were put on SSRIs in an attempt to have them cope with their impulsive aggression.

“The study does also not show that SSRI use makes you more likely to be convicted of violent crime compared to if you had not taken SSRI’s. The absence of dose effect, e.g., for moderate or high SSRI use supports that this is not a causal relationship”.

‘Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Violent Crime: A Cohort Study’ by Molero et al. published in PLOS Medicine on Tuesday 15^th September. 

Declared interests

None received