Amitriptilina: um levantamento bioinformático

Abstract

Depression is considered a challenge of great medical and social concern because it affects more and more people every single day. It is characterized by the loss or decrease of interest in life’s pleasures, and can manifest itself in extreme attitudes that result in self-inflicted pain and/or wounds or even suicide. Depression treatment is complex due to the fact that the disease is not easily diagnosed, in addition to initial admission and/or misconceptions. Due to the demands related to the increasing number of depression cases and thanks to research, there have been advancements in the study of antidepressants and each of them with specific functions. Biochemistry has been used to focus on understanding the disease’s physiopathology for the evolution of study and to ascertain the antidepressant’s effects. In this way, this study had the objective to reveal scientific data about one drug used in depression treatment, amitriptyline, by means of reviewing bibliographies and using bioinformatic tools, it was possible to obtain information about its characteristics and specifications, as well as its chemical structure, including half-life, elimination route, among others. For this, descriptive and exploratory studies about amitriptyline were being conducted using databases as PubChem, DrugBank and Keeg Drug. The data revealed that amitriptyline is an antidepressant tricyclic of tertiary amine, a derivative of dibenzylcycloheptane, with powerful serotonin and noradrenaline inhibitions. Amitriptyline is structurally related, like cyclobenzaprine, relaxing skeletal muscle, just like anti-psychotics of thioxanthene and like thiothixene. For being extremely sedative, it is indicative for improving sleep patterns and it may be the first benefit of this treatment. Due to the proven effectiveness of amitriptyline, it is considered the gold standard of antidepressant analgesics.