Brain Signal IDs Responders to Fast-Acting Antidepressant

[xchrom]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120806171321.htm

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Images show response to finger stroking pre- and post-ketamine obtained by MEG scanning. (Credit: Image courtesy of NIH/National Institute of Mental Health)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2012) — Scientists have discovered a biological marker that may help to identify which depressed patients will respond to an experimental, rapid-acting antidepressant. The brain signal, detectable by noninvasive imaging, also holds clues to the agent's underlying mechanism, which are vital for drug development, say National Institutes of Health researchers.

The signal is among the latest of several such markers, including factors detectable in blood, genetic markers, and a sleep-specific brain wave, recently uncovered by the NIH team and grantee collaborators. They illuminate the workings of the agent, called ketamine, and may hold promise for more personalized treatment.

"These clues help focus the search for the molecular targets of a future generation of medications that will lift depression within hours instead of weeks," explained Carlos Zarate, M.D., of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). "The more precisely we understand how this mechanism works, the more narrowly treatment can be targeted to achieve rapid antidepressant effects and avoid undesirable side effects."

Zarate, Brian Cornwell, Ph.D., and NIMH colleagues report on their brain imaging study online in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

[Warpy]

1. Ketamine was a dissociative anesthetic when I went through school

so it's not surprising that it would interfere with that rut depressive patients wear in their brains pacing around something they've come to obsess about.

Depression is a weird thing. When mine rolls in, I start obsessing over disasters that happened decades ago if I can't come up with anything to be depressed about now. Ketamine would likely alter this pattern rather quickly.

All we have to do is wrest it away from the club crowd and get it approved for depression, at least under a doctor's supervision.

I'd love to be a guinea pig for this one. Nothing else has ever helped besides waiting it out.