More than 25 million Americans visit their doctor every year for treatment of depression. Antidepressant medications are prescribed for most cases of depression. However, less than half of people taking antidepressants get relief. The current dogma is that stress is a major cause of depression. Now research reports that antidepressant drugs have been targeted at the wrong cause.
The study, presented at the 2009 Neuroscience Conference in Chicago, investigated the molecular changes associated with chronic stress and depression. Researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine first examined genes in the brain regions linked with depression of severely depressed rats and humans. The scientists then exposed the depressed rats to chronic stress for two weeks. They examined the genes again in the same brain regions. The depressed-related genes and stress-related genes were compared.
The researchers found that there was no overlap between the stress genes and depression genes. "This overlap is insignificant, a very small percentage," says researcher Eva Redei in a news release. "This finding is clear evidence that at least in an animal model, chronic stress does not cause the same molecular changes as depression does."
This discovery suggests that antidepressant drugs are not treating depression, they are treating stress. The researchers are now studying genes that differ in depressed rats to narrow down molecular targets.
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