Posted by linkadge on December 19, 2006, at 19:47:10
In reply to Re: Tianeptine MOA » saturn, posted by blueberry1 on December 19, 2006, at 19:01:19
My psychiatrist never heard of the drug either. Any he's the head psychiatrist at Waterloo University, Canada.
I don't know what to think. Because of the so called "sucess" with the SSRI's there has been a great deal of research into the individual variations in the functionality of the serotonin transporter in depression.
It is increasingly turning out, that in people with a history of depression following stressfull events the activity of the serotonin transporter is actually lower.
So, if this research is at all accurate, you won't make a depressed person's brain be any more resemblant of a healty brain by giving it an SSRI.
There is a lot of research at: (most of which is very contradictory)
http://www.neurotransmitter.net/serotoningenetic.html
The idea that serotonin is the "calming" neurotransmitter isn't all that accurate. It depends on the part of the brain. In the dorsal raphia neucleus (sp.) excessive serotonergic firing is highly anxiogenic (hence the use of buspar which actually supresses serotonin firing as an anxiolotic). People with lower activity of the serotonin transporter also respond to frightening stimuli with greater activation of the amygdala.In my opinion, the reason SSRI's are antidepressants has nothing or little to do with uptake inhibition of serotonin. Tianeptine shares a similar opioid pathway as the SSRI's as an example of a possable alternative mechanism.
Its just like you have the TCA's and you have the TCA trimipramine (surmontil). Well, surmontil is an effective TCA antidepressant but has no affinity for serotonin or noradrenaline uptake.
I personally don't know if the fact that it is a serotonin uptake acellerator has anything to do with why it is not approved. I suppose its possable, but you'd have to be pretty damn low to keep a drug off the market just because it happens to make psychiatrists look like fools.
I tell ya though, it would be pretty funny to see my doctor taking down those pictures of the luvox molecule interfering with the reuptake of serotonin!
Linkadge
poster:linkadge
thread:714901
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061217/msgs/715095.html