These are the first-line antidepressants. SSRIs raise serotonin levels in the brain by blocking its reuptake into nerve cells; SNRIs block the reuptake of noradrenaline as well. In practice the choice between them is guided less by efficacy — which is broadly similar — than by side effects, interactions, and whether a patient also has chronic pain or anxiety, where the SNRIs have an edge.
The facts on this page are pulled directly from official U.S. FDA datasets — they are not written from memory. Each field below names the dataset it came from, so you can check it yourself.
Plain-English summaries and drug-class explainers are written and reviewed by the Priya Life Science editorial team, led by Sreepriya Prasannan (MSc Digital Transformation of Life Sciences (Innopharma Education / Griffith College); MSc & BSc Botany). Data is retrieved automatically from the sources above and cross-checked with AI-assisted verification (Anthropic's Claude) — brand and generic names are matched against the exact FDA product record so that a combination product or a different formulation cannot be mistaken for the drug on this page. An editor reviews the result before publication. We describe this in full in our editorial standards and corrections policy. The FDA data on this page was last retrieved on 8 Aug 2026.