SSRIs, stimulants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics. What they actually do, what they don't, and what to expect.
Methylphenidate has been around since 1944 and is still, in 2026, one of the most reliable molecules in psychiatry. Ritalin is the original brand. Concerta is the long-acting…
Mar 28, 2026Propranolol is a cardiology drug that wandered into psychiatry by accident and stayed because it does one specific thing well. It’s a non-selective beta blocker, developed for hypertension…
Mar 26, 2026Adderall is amphetamine. Specifically, it’s a roughly 3:1 mix of dextroamphetamine and levoamphetamine salts, the same molecule that’s been around since the 1930s. The branding is newer than…
Mar 23, 2026Remeron is the antidepressant nobody picks first and a lot of people end up grateful for. The generic name is mirtazapine, it’s been around since the mid-90s, and…
Mar 17, 2026Lunesta is the Z-drug that gets reached for when Ambien isn’t holding the night together. Same family, different shape, slightly longer half-life. It binds the same GABA-A receptor…
Mar 15, 2026Zoloft is the drug I prescribe more than anything else, and the one patients ask the most questions about before they’re willing to swallow the first pill. Sertraline…
Feb 24, 2026Trintellix is the antidepressant pharma reps spent a decade trying to make happen. Vortioxetine, marketed under Trintellix in the US and Brintellix everywhere else, hit the market in…
Feb 21, 2026Pristiq is what happens when you take Effexor, skip a metabolic step, and sell it as a new drug. That’s not a dig. It’s the actual mechanism. Venlafaxine…
Feb 16, 2026Melatonin is one of the most misunderstood things sold in a drugstore. People take it the way they’d take Benadryl, like a sedative, like a thing that knocks…
Jan 28, 2026Caplyta is the drug that came out in 2019 and made a bunch of psychiatrists raise an eyebrow at the receptor pharmacology, then raise both eyebrows at the…
Jan 25, 2026