Posted by linkadge on November 23, 2005, at 15:53:19
In reply to Re: MAOIs » linkadge, posted by Bob on November 22, 2005, at 18:29:00
The idea that antidepressants work via alteration in sleep stages is not a proposition of my own.
Doctors knew that depression could be treated by either total sleep deprivation or REM sleep interuption. SSRIs reduce REM sleep, as do the MAOI's. Antidepressant withdrawl can cause a REM rebound and subsequenct cholinergic rebound and depression.
I found it interesting that the MAOI's reduced REM much more than did the SSRI's. The MAOI's are often more clinically effective drugs.
Reducing rem sleep is often sufficiant to produce antidepressant responce.
I first was under the impression that antidepressants normalized rem sleep, but some literature seems to suggest that AD's can suppress it much lower than baseline.
Linakadge
poster:linkadge
thread:579730
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051119/msgs/581628.html