Preventing Alzheimer’s disease, with an antidepressant

Citalopram, an antidepressant better known by its commercial name Celexa, has a remarkable side effect, a new study has found: In both mice bred to develop Alzheimer’s disease and in healthy human volunteers, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI, drives down the production of a protein called beta-amyloid, which in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s clumps together in sticky plaques and is thought to short-circuit the brain’s wiring.

In study participants free of Alzheimer’s disease or any other neuropsychiatric affliction, citalopram was found to reduce the concentration of beta-amyloid in the cerebrospinal fluid (outside of the brain) by 38 percent. Researchers see that as a clear sign that beta-amyloid protein in the brain, too, declines in those taking the antidepressant.