Treatment of Pathological Crying with Citalopram

Abstract

Pathological laughing and/or crying may occur as a concomitant symptom of various diseases of the central nervous system. No known anatomical basis for any of these disorders exists at present. However, references to a disturbance in central serotoninergic neurotransmission have become frequent in the literature, implicating this as an important etiological factor. In the present communication three cases of successful treatment of pathological crying using the SSRI citalopram are reported. Besides the response of pathological crying in cerebral ischemia to SSRIs, which has already been described in earlier publications, this is the first report on the successful administration of citalopram for treating pathological crying in Parkinson's disease. Onset of response was very rapid in all cases.