![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What lovely neurons! Are those new?
Aug. 8th, 2003 10:20 amAntidepressants Grow New Brain Cells--U.S. Study
Antidepressants may help stimulate the growth of new brain cells, U.S.-based scientists said on Thursday in releasing research that may lead to the development of better drugs to fight depression.
Research on rats shows that two different classes of antidepressants can help brain cells regenerate -- and not in areas normally thought of as being involved in depression.
"This is an important new insight into how antidepressants work," Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said in a statement.
The study fits in with others that suggest depression can shrink the hippocampus, a brain region crucial to learning and memory but only recently found to be involved in depression. Major stress and trauma -- both depression triggers -- can also cause the shrinkage.
"We have known that antidepressants influence the birth of neurons in the hippocampus. Now it appears that this effect may be important for the clinical response," Insel said.
( Read more... )
Antidepressants may help stimulate the growth of new brain cells, U.S.-based scientists said on Thursday in releasing research that may lead to the development of better drugs to fight depression.
Research on rats shows that two different classes of antidepressants can help brain cells regenerate -- and not in areas normally thought of as being involved in depression.
"This is an important new insight into how antidepressants work," Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said in a statement.
The study fits in with others that suggest depression can shrink the hippocampus, a brain region crucial to learning and memory but only recently found to be involved in depression. Major stress and trauma -- both depression triggers -- can also cause the shrinkage.
"We have known that antidepressants influence the birth of neurons in the hippocampus. Now it appears that this effect may be important for the clinical response," Insel said.
( Read more... )