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Chronic antidepressant treatments enhance dopaminergic neurotransmission in the mesolimbic dopamine system. We suggested that this potentiation might underlie both the antidepressant therapeutic effect and the antidepressant-induced switch from depression to mania. In a recent study we have shown a reversal of the imipramine-induced dopaminergic supersensitivity after 40 days of chronic imipramine withdrawal. We interpreted this result suggesting that the mood-switches observed in bipolar patients following antidepressant treatment and subsequent withdrawal, i.e. mania followed by rebound depression, might depend upon parallel changes in the mesolimbic dopamine system sensitivity. On this basis, one might predict a depressive-like behaviour after long-term interruption of a chronic treatment with imipramine. To test this hypothesis we examined the behaviour of rats treated with chronic imipramine …