Abstract:
Antidepressant use in adolescents has become more common in recent years. We
have found several studies stating that prenatal antidepressant exposure can lead to
delayed or earlier puberty onset but there was no study on postnatal paroxetine or
bupropion. The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of postnatal exposure
to bupropion or paroxetine on puberty onset, reproductive and feeding results.
The male rats (n = 8/group) aged 21 days were exposed to paroxetine (3.6 mg/
kg) or bupropion (17 mg/kg) orally by gastric gavage every day from postnatal day
21–90. Also, control group received only saline orally as a vehicle. Postnatal exposure
to bupropion or paroxetine delayed puberty onset compared to control group, but it
was not significant. Sperm counts were significantly lower in the paroxetine and bupropion
groups compared to control group. Sperm motility was significantly lower in
only bupropion group. In addition, sperm motility was lower in paroxetine group, but
it was not significant. In the histopathological examination, there was damage to the
testicular structure in both treatments. Taken together, our result indicates that postnatal
paroxetine or bupropion exposure may affect puberty onset and contribute to
the impairment in fertility in male rats.
