Trazodone (trade names Desyrel, Molipaxin, Trittico, Thombran, Trialodine) is a psychoactive compound with sedative, anxiolytic, and antidepressant properties. The various manufacturers claim that the antidepressant activity becomes active in the first week of therapy. Trazodone has less prominent anticholinergic (dry mouth, constipation, tachycardia) and adrenolytic (hypotension, male sexual problems) side effects than most tricyclic antidepressants.
Trazodone is chemically and pharmacologically distinct from tricyclic antidepressants and tetracyclic antidepressants (for a review, see PMID: 8019056). Lacking the fused ring structures typical of these compounds, trazodone is a triazolopyridine derivative.
