14 DAY TRIAL // The stress response and immune system are two of the newly identified factors that could play an important role in depression, new research on animals has revealed.
The researchers have also discovered that regulating nerve cell signals affects depression in animals, and that new combinations of drugs could treat it more effectively.
The findings of several scientists were presented today at Neuroscience 2010, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
Herwig Baier, PhD, concluded that an inability to cope with stress may play a role in depression; the example that was given was a zebrafish with a mutation in a receptor important in stress management, which when it was placed in a stressful situation, had a depression-like behavior, that Prozac managed to reverse.
James Bibb, PhD, revealed that mice that lack a molecule involved in regulating nerve cell signals are more active and resistant to stressful situations; their behavior is actually the same as animals given antidepressant drugs.
The discovery gives a new target for controlling brain chemicals that regulate mood.
Simon Sydserff, PhD, added that the immune system could be a factor of depression and explained that when an immune hormone that carries "sickness" signals to the brain was blocked in mice, the animals presented fewer depression symptoms.
Two antidepressants may be better than one, believes Marina Picciotto, PhD.
She said that a new animal study proved that combining drugs that alter two mood-regulating brain chemicals triggers a greater antidepressant response.
Dr Jennifer Warner-Schmidt's recent discoveries show that two brain molecules – p11 and brain-derived neurotrophic factor, are what makes antidepressants work.
Press conference moderator Robert Greene, MD, PhD, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and an expert in psychiatric disorders, said that “finding treatments for disorders of the nervous system is a social imperative.
“Basic neuroscience research has formed the basis for significant progress in discovering potentially powerful strategies for new, more effective therapies to combat depression.”
This research was supported by national funding agencies – like the National Institutes of Health, as well as by private and philanthropic organizations.
Depression is a very frequent mental disorder that affects over 121 million people in the world, according to data from the World Health Organization.
The problem is that 20 to 40 percent of affected people are not helped by current depression therapies, so new approaches and treatment targets are necessary.