Anxiolytics and Antidepressants: Problem or Solution?

Abstract

Mental disorders are serious neuropsychiatric diseases that affect the development of daily life of the person who suffers and during the last decades the number of affected has increased. In these cases, pharmacological treatment is an essential and necessary therapeutic tool. However, problems associated with these treatments, such as addiction, have been described after their use. Interestingly, these pharmacological treatments against mental disorders could improve other types of pathologies, as occurs in the mental illness of addiction. The objective of this work is to analyze the most recent scientific literature in relation to the problem of addiction to legal drugs, mainly anxiolytics and antidepressants, as well as the possible therapeutic use of these for the treatment of addictions. For this, an exhaustive search was carried out in the main scientific databases, selecting the most recent articles that use the keywords that interest us and that are published in the last 5 years. The data points to the great problem of consumption of legal drugs but also to a possible similarity in their mechanism of action between addiction to substances of abuse and mental problems, so that some drugs against mental problems could be used as a pharmacological tool in the addiction to substances.