“If the first antidepressants were discovered 65 years ago, this disease is still poorly treated,” note researchers from the Inserm Neuroscience Paris Seine unit. “Current treatments, including inhibitors of reuptake of serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in mood, have long onset of action and variable effectiveness. About 30% of patients do not respond satisfactorily. “
Objective for scientists, therefore: “to develop new, more effective drugs which act with different modes of action”.
An ignored protein
Recent studies have shown that a little-known family of proteins in the brain, organic cation transporters (OCTs), play a role in mood regulation.
The researchers therefore decided to make them therapeutic targets. They thus developed a drug candidate which they tested on an animal model presenting depressive disorders: anxiety, cognitive disturbances, social aversion or even anhedonia, that is to say the loss of pleasure in daily activities.
Result: the mice showed a clear reduction in all symptoms, as effectively as with the reference antidepressant, Prozac®, and even an accelerated effect at 11 days on anhedonia.
“These initial results provide evidence that organic cation transporters are relevant therapeutic targets for mood disorders,” conclude the authors. Now remains to conduct clinical studies on humans.
Do “white noises” really help baby fall asleep?
Source: Destination Santé
–
