Sunday, June 12, 2011

Melatonin Receptor-Based Antidepressant Therapy in USA?

Self-medication is not the most profitably way of dealing with a stiff form of depression. Various psychoactive kind compounds are typically used in this potentially deleterious practice. These compounds range from highly rectified spirit to over-the-counter products including the hormone melatonin. Hormonal therapies are in the highest degree suited for the replacement of pathologically reasonable or missing levels of endogenous hormones; using insulin to gratification diabetes is a good example. It's arduous to make a simple and convincing declension-form for the use of melatonin replacement therapy - too many miracle cures take already been associated with melatonin. Possibly the most excellent use of this hormone would exist to regulate sleep patterns or to stop jet lag. But could melatonin exist therapeutic for conditions such as afflictive depression? No clinical data are beneficial to conclusively support the use of melatonin in antidepressant therapy. However, clinical results hint that melatonin receptors may be involved.

A scrutiny for clinical trials with melatonin in the U.S. Government-sponsored database called ClinicalTrials.gov without ceasing June 7, 2011 revealed 128 studies. Most of these trials be delivered of been designed to explore the goods of melatonin supplementation on sleep. None of them investigated melatonin supplementation in the management of depression. One study measured melatonin levels in the feelings of patients with major depressive complaint, and a couple of studies investigated the furniture of light therapy in depression and restricted melatonin levels in treated subjects. This is in a fully contrast to the number of clinical trials with a drug that stimulates melatonin receptors, a mark considered to be specific for the honey-combed actions of melatonin. The compound in put in a box, agomelatine, has been approved in Europe as being treatment of depression and is at that time being investigated in the U.S.

How would melatonin receptors be in action to alleviate symptoms of severe sadness? Imagine for a moment you've suitable won a huge Mega Millions jackpot and you've bought yourself a habitation. It's a huge castle through lots of doors, each with at least one lock and some with exclusive. These locks are the melatonin receptors. There are pair main types of these receptors, MT1 and MT2. You've besides got the master key, melatonin, that opens both types of locks. To the in-laws who poured in to inspect as soon as they'd heard of your result you only give keys to settled locks, the MT1 or the MT2, in such a manner you can keep some privacy. For the specific room in which you keep your ~ numerous valued possessions, you have an adscititious layer of security, a door equipped not barely with both MT1 and MT2 locks, still also with an unusual lock, the serotonin receptor called 5-HT2C. To guileless this door, the 5-HT2C stop must be locked at the identical time you are using the master key to unfasten the MT1 and MT2 locks. Quite a drudgery!

Apparently, you can do the sort to your brain 5-HT2C, MT1, and MT2 receptors ~ dint of. taking agomelatine, a drug that acts simultaneously forward the MT1 and MT2 melatonin receptors (since their agonist) and on the 5-HT2C serotonin receptors (of the same kind with their antagonist). Scientists believed that this simultaneous manipulation of brain melatonin and 5-HT2C serotonin receptors reduces the symptoms of major depression. According to this concept, using melatonin alone would not produce the same consequence.

In their article The Pattern of Melatonin Receptor Expression in the Brain may Influence Antidepressant Treatment, Dr. Eric Hirsch-Rodriguez and colleagues from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago described to what extent the presence of melatonin receptors of the like kind as MT1 and MT2 in separate brain areas changes over time and be able to be affected by illness and unsalable article treatment. For example, prolonged treatment with classical antidepressants changes the content of the MT1 and MT receptors. These investigators suggested that melatonin or drugs based up~ the body melatonin would produce antidepressant effects simply if an optimal amount and brain grouping of melatonin receptors are available beneficial to drug action and that clinical trials through such drugs would need to take into regard the characterization of patients' melatonin receptors.

Agomelatine, the capital melatonin receptor-based antidepressant, is popularly being clinically evaluated for approval for use in U.S. On June 7, 2011, ClinicalTrials.gov listed 9 clinical trials (single in kind has been withdrawn) with agomelatine. Seven of these trials are investigating the use of agomelatine in the treatment of major depressive disorder. Their outcome along with the experience from the ongoing application of agomelatine in Europe may decide the time to come of melatonin receptor-based therapy in c~tinuance health improvement for U.S. patients through major depression.

No comments:

Post a Comment