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Mar 08, 2014, 09:04 AM
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Member Since: Feb 2014
Location: Michigan
Posts: 5,481
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New Depression Treatments On The Horizon | The Healthy Mind with Dr. Zafirides
Quote:
New insight into the biological causes of depression is leading to great hope for treatments that go beyond common antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft.
Despite the advances in psychiatry over the last 30 years, drugs that target neurotransmitters succeed in resolving depression in fewer than half of patients. Treatments on the horizon include new medications, electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain and long-term cognitive behavioral therapy for stress management.
For more than 50 years, depression has been studied and understood as a deficiency of chemical messengers, called neurotransmitters, that carry signals between brain cells. Commonly used antidepressants are designed to either increase the release or block the degradation of three neurotransmitters – dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin.
New theories of depression are focusing on differences in neuron density in various regions of the brain; on the effect of stress on the birth and death of brain cells; on the alteration of feedback pathways in the brain and on the role of inflammation evoked by the stress response.
Stress Alters Your Brain
Chronic stress is believed to be the leading cause of depression, the authors write. Long-term stress harms cells in the brain and body. Stressful experiences are believed to be closely associated with both the development of psychological alterations and emotional disorders. For example, during times of chronic stress, nerve cells in a part of the brain known as the hippocampus (responsible for emotions, learning and memory) begin to deteriorate.
The new depression theories “should not be viewed as separate entities because they are highly interconnected,” say the researches. Blending them “provides for a more expansive understanding of the pathophysiology of depression and biomarkers that are involved.”
Such biomarkers are molecules in the body that can be indicators of depression. The authors identify more than a dozen potential biomarkers depression. Additionally, up and coming treatments – from ketamine to deep brain stimulation to new anti-flammatory agents – are currently being studied and offer great hope to the millions who suffer with depression and other mood disorders.
February 14, 2014
The Healthy Mind Network
- See more at: New Depression Treatments On The Horizon | The Healthy Mind with Dr. Zafirides
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__________________
The "paradox" is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality "ought to be." -- Richard Feynman
Major Depressive Disorder
Anxiety Disorder with some paranoid delusions thrown in for fun.
Recovering Alcoholic and Addict
Possibly on low end of bi polar spectrum...trying to decide.
Male, 50
Fetzima 80mg
Lamictal 100mg
Remeron 30mg for sleep
Klonopin .5mg twice a day, cutting this back
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