(Press-News.org) For the first time in a human model, scientists have discovered how anti-depressants make new brain cells. This means that researchers can now develop better and more efficient drugs to combat depression.
Previous studies have shown that anti-depressants make new brain cells, however, until now it was not known how they did it. In a study to be published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, show that anti-depressants regulate the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) - a key protein involved in the stress response. Moreover, the study shows that all types of anti-depressant are dependent on the GR to create new cells.
Depression is expected to be the second leading burden of disease world wide by the year 2020. Recent studies have demonstrated that depressed patients show a reduction in a process called 'neurogenesis', that is, a reduction in the development of new brain cells. This reduced neurogenesis may contribute to the debilitating psychological symptoms of depression, such as low mood or impaired memory. With as much as half of all depressed patients failing to improve with currently available treatments, developing new effective anti-depressant treatment still remains a great challenge, which makes it crucial to identify new potential mechanisms to target.
The Laboratory of Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology (SPI-lab) at King's has been looking into the role of the GR in depression for a number of years. In this study, scientists used human hippocampal stem cells, the source of new cells in the human brain, as a new model to investigate 'in a dish' the effects of anti-depressants on brain cells.
Christoph Anacker, PhD student at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's and lead author of the study said: 'For the first time in a clinically relevant model, we were able to show that anti-depressants produce more stem cells and also accelerate their development into adult brain cells. Additionally, we demonstrate for the first time that stress hormones, which are generally very high in depressed patients, show the opposite effect.
'We discovered that a specific protein in the cell, the glucocorticoid receptor, is essential for this to take place. The anti-depressants activate this protein which switches on particular genes that turn immature 'stem' cells into adult 'brain' cells.
'By increasing the number of new-born cells in the adult human brain, anti-depressants counteract the damaging effects of stress hormones and may overcome the brain abnormalities which may cause low mood and impaired memory in depression.'
Anacker concludes: 'Having identified the glucocorticoid receptor as a key player in making new brain cells, we will now be able to use this novel stem cell system to model psychiatric illnesses in the laboratory, test new compounds and develop much more effective, targeted anti-depressant drugs. However, first it is important that future studies investigate all possible effects that the increase of neurogenesis has on behaviour in humans.'
INFORMATION:
This study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust & Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and the UK Medical Research Council. The study was jointly led by the senior authors Dr Carmine M. Pariante, at the Laboratory of Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology in the Department of Psychological Medicine, and Dr Sandrine Thuret and Professor Jack Price, at the Centre for the Cellular Basis of Behaviour, all based at Institute of Psychiatry King's College London.
END
Despite current prohibitions on the words 'light' and 'mild', smokers in Western countries continue falsely to believe that some cigarette brands may be less harmful than others. In fact, all conventional brands of cigarette present the same level of risk to smokers, including 'mild' and 'low-tar' brands.
A study published today in the journal Addiction polled over 8000 smokers from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the USA. Approximately one-fifth of those smokers incorrectly believed that "some cigarette brands could be less harmful than others." False beliefs ...
Long-distance, high speed communications depend on lasers. But when information is transmitted down fiber optic cables, it's critical that the signal be clear enough to be decoded at the other end. Two factors are important in this respect: the color of the light, otherwise known as the wavelength, and the orientation of the light wave, known as polarization. A team from EPFL and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) has developed a technique that improves control over these two parameters.
"All indications are that this technology ...
We all move around in a protective bubble of "near space," more commonly known as "personal space." But not everyone's bubble is the same size. People who project their personal space too far beyond their bodies, or the norm of arm's reach, are more likely to experience claustrophobic fear, a new study finds.
The study, to be published in the journal Cognition, is one of the first to focus on the perceptual mechanisms of claustrophobic fear.
"We've found that people who are higher in claustrophobic fear have an exaggerated sense of the near space surrounding them," ...
A new study conducted by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital found that an estimated 5.25 million football-related injuries among children and adolescents between 6 and 17 years of age were treated in U.S. emergency departments between 1990 and 2007. The annual number of football-related injuries increased 27 percent during the 18-year study period, jumping from 274,094 in 1990 to 346,772 in 2007.
"We found that nearly 2,000 pediatric and adolescent football-related injuries were treated ...
Michael Tabman, retired FBI Agent and author of Walking the Corporate Beat: Police School for Business People, releases Midnight Sin, a gritty crime novel that follows the journey of rookie cop Gary Hollings as he steps out onto a midnight shift. Hollings soon realizes that being a cop changes everything he thought he knew about life. Every decision he makes has unforeseen consequences. Hollings works hard to build his reputation as a solid cop while he makes arrests and helps his fellow cops out of tough situations. But fighting crime is not just a matter of right and ...
Six billion people are educated by state schools. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese folk religion make up 5.8 billion people (approximately 85% of the world population). Both state schools and religions have failed to avoid the deteriorating state of humanity and the planet.
The status quo: 2.3 billion people under-fed and starving, over 500 million living in "absolute poverty", nearly 3 billion without access to sanitation, over 1 billion without housing, 2 billion without electricity, and 1 billion analphabets, pollution, wars, contamination, declining ...
Grauer School students Ben Webster (8th Grade) and Stewart Wirick (10th Grade) competed with over 900 students and won awards in two separate categories at the Greater San Diego County Science & Engineering Fair that was held at the Balboa Park Activity Center on March 22-27, 2011. The fair provides and maintains a continuous process that seeks to encourage and award professional excellence, promote literacy and educational enrichment and provide unique opportunities for independent achievement in science and technology.
Stewart Wirick's project, "Can a Smart Phone Battery ...
Jitbit Software has introduced a new version of Macro Recorder 5.0, completely rewritten to the .NET Platform. The company opines that this new adaptation is an incredible technological achievement that employs lots of unique features. According to them the "ClickOnce" technology used to deploy the application will enable users to install and run the application by simply clicking a link on a webpage. Moreover, users can get instant automatic updates and critical fixes. The new version is built on the .NET platform. The .NET framework enables everything from adding new ...
Through interactive case studies attendees of the 2011 Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum (LEEF) will explore leading edge applications of serious games with industry experts and peers during the event, which is set for is set for June 16-17 at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in PA.
LEEF is an interactive professional development event that explores the use of games, simulations and virtual worlds for learning. The program showcases how learning and entertainment technologies have converged and continue to evolve to produce solutions that are ...
http://www.AshburnLawyer.org, a new local area website with listings of Ashburn lawyers and attorneys, is live and ready to assist Ashburn area companies as well as residents find legal providers in Ashburn that can assist them with any legal issues. With Ashburn, Virginia being such a rapidly growing suburb of the Washington DC / Northern Virginia Metro area, the growth of legal service providers has been rapid as well. While this is ideal for Ashburn area companies, organizations, and residents who are searching for legal providers, working through the growing list of ...
