New drug discovered to treat depression within 24 hours

Washington

 Scientists have made a breakthrough discovery by identifying compounds that could successfully treat depression in less than day’s time, with minimal side effects.

 Although the compounds have not yet been tested on people, they could offer significant advantages over current antidepressant medications.

 "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," said Scott Thompson, Professor and Head of the Department of Physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM).

 At present, people suffering from depression have to take medications that increase levels of the neurochemical serotonin in the brain.

 The most common of these drugs, such as Prozac and Lexapro, are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.

 SSRIs are effective in only a third of patients with depression. Even when these drugs work, they typically take between three and eight weeks to relieve symptoms.

 As a result, patients often suffer for months before finding a medicine that makes them feel better.

 Researchers say that better treatment for depression is need, especially for such cases where patients are suicidal.

 Other than serontonin, Thompson and his team focused on another neurotransmitter, an inhibitory compound called GABA.

 According to researchers, excitatory messages necessary for communication among cells in some parts of the brain  are not strong enough, while in depression.

  They examined a class of compounds that reduce the inhibitory messages sent via GABA, as there is no safe way to directly strengthen excitatory communication. They predicted that these compounds would restore excitatory strength.

 These compounds, called GABA-NAMs, decrease unwanted side effects because they precisely work only in those parts of the brain that are essential for mood.

 While testing the compounds in rats that were subjected to chronic mild stress, it caused the animals to act in such ways resembling human depression.

 When given GABA-NAMs, it successfully reversed experimental signs of a symptom of depression or the inability to feel pleasure among stressed rats.

 Remarkably, the beneficial effects of the compounds appeared within 24 hours - much faster than the multiple weeks needed for SSRIs to produce the same effects.

 "These compounds produced the most dramatic effects in animal studies that we could have hoped for," Thompson said.

 The study was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.