Posted by SLS on September 10, 2005, at 7:53:24
In reply to Re: Reserpine for depression, posted by zeugma on September 9, 2005, at 18:21:36
Thanks, Zeugma.
> There was a study done in the mid 50's at the Maudsley psych hospital that was one of the first randomized placebo-controlled tests ever conducted on depression- and the result was the that the drug was an anxiolytic and antidepressant. The drug also had a reputation as a neuroleptic and was used as such by Nathan Kline, discoverer of the AD effects of the first MAOI.
I was unaware of the study you described. I find it exciting that reserpine by itself showed an antidepressant effect in some individuals. It would be interesting to know whether or not there was a latency between the initiation of treatment and therapeutic effect. I would expect the anxiolytic and antipsychotic effects to be immediate, but not the antidepressant effect.
I was once under the care of a Nathan Kline protege named Baron Shopsin.
> can either you or linkadge (or possibly Chairman MAO) explain how modafinil works. Other than the headache-inducing effects it shares with MSG-laced Chinese food. The local No.1 Chinese Restaurant never did much for my wakefulness.
Modafinil has been attributed with the ability to increase the release of glutamate in the hypothalamus. I think this is the property first hypothesized to be associated with its promotion of wakefulness. However, now most believe that it stimulates the secretion of hypocretin (orexin), a hypothalamic neurohormone that acts on the reticular formation in the thalamus and areas of the cerebral cortex. These would be the modes by which modafinil would treat narcolepsy. For depression, it is the promotion of glutamate release in the thalamus and hippocampus that might give rise to a reduction in anhedonia and depression in general, as activation of these areas yields increases in dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:552664
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050909/msgs/553147.html