A new antidepressent is currently being tested that can treat the symptoms of depression in less than 24 hours, compared to the three to eight weeks antideppressent drugs normally take.
Researchers are currently testing rats, with the results looking promising. If these results can be replicated with humans, this drug could offer more effective results than other antidepressants on the market, such as Prozac and Lexapro, which only show a success rate of treating one-third of the patient who are diagnosed with depression.
"Our results open up a whole new class of potential antidepressant medications," lead researcher Scott Thompson from the University of Maryland said in press release. "We have evidence that these compounds can relieve the devastating symptoms of depression in less than one day, and can do so in a way that limits some of the key disadvantages of current approaches."
Antidepressants that are currently available work by increasing the levels of serotonin in the brain. These are also known as serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which work by limiting the reabsorption of serotonin into the brain’s presynaptic cell. This process helps the brain cells to receive chemical messages more effectively, which in-turn, can improve a person's mood.
The issue with the antidepressants that patients are currently taking is the fact that there are a range of SSRIs available, but each one has a different chemical make-up; this means that every patient will react to those chemical make-ups in a different way. Most common side effects with these medications range from nausea, dizziness, weight gain, drowsiness and insomnia.
According to a recent study done on these medications,"The rate of treatment response following first-line treatment with SSRIs is moderate, varying from 40 to 60 percent; remission rates vary from 30 to 45 percent. Up to one third of persons taking antidepressant medications will develop recurrent symptoms of depression while on therapy."
To produce a medication that is more effective, researchers have focused on a neurotransmitter that is different from serotonin, a compound called GABA.
According to researchers, they hypothesize that the most effective way to fight depression could be to reduce the levels of inhibitory neurotransmitters in these areas, which are responsible for calming the mind and balancing mood.
Thompson and his research team looked at a compound called GABA-NAM, which is the inhibitory neurotransmitter that runs through the GABA.
When this theory was tested on rats who showed depressive symptoms, these compounds were able to balance the work of the other neurotransmitters to stabilize the mood for 24 hours with minimal unwanted side effects.
"These compounds produced the most dramatic effects in animal studies that we could have hoped for," said Thompson. "It will now be tremendously exciting to find out whether they produce similar effects in depressed patients. If these compounds can quickly provide relief of the symptoms of human depression, such as suicidal thinking, it could revolutionise the way patients are treated."
Thompson and his research team are currently preparing for human trials to see if the results that were seen in the rats can be duplicated.
