Can Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Drugs Alter Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Thickness in First Episode Depressive Patients?

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are among the most used and safe antidepressant drugs in the world. In previous studies, SSRIs have been found to cause an increase in brain gray matter volume in patients with major depression (MD). Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive medical imaging method that displays biological tissue layers by taking high-resolution tomographic sections. Changes in the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), a layer of the ganglion cell complex in the retinal layer of the eye and composed of ganglion cell axons, occur due to axonal damage in the retinal nerve tissue. Since RNFL is similar to brain gray matter tissue, recently neurological and psychiatric studies have been conducted to provide data on the neurodegeneration that occurs in the brain by OCT. However, in a recent cross-sectional study, contrary to what was expected, thinning of the retinal nerve fiber layer was detected in psychiatric patients using SSRI drugs compared to the healthy group, and this was attributed to a probable maculopathy caused by SSRIs in the eye. In this study, it is aimed to assess the probable cortical volume changes of the patients by measuring the changes in retinal nerve layers due to SSRI treatment in first-attack MD patients.