Antidepressant News and Research

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Antidepressants are medicines that treat depression. Your doctor can prescribe them for you. They can improve your mood, sleep, appetite and concentration. It may take several weeks for them to help. There are several types of antidepressants. You and your doctor may have to try several before finding what works best for you.

ECT treatment helps more people with severe depression than ketamine

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have compared the effects of intravenous ketamine treatment with ECT treatment in severe depression.

11 Jan 2022

Researchers identify a biomarker in platelets that tracks the extent of depression

Researchers are one step closer to developing a blood test that provides a simple biochemical hallmark for depression and reveals the efficacy of drug therapy in individual patients.

3 Jan 2022

Genomic variant may help predict which patients will experience chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity

A team of investigators have discovered a genomic variant that may help clinicians predict which patients will experience cardiotoxicity from a widely used chemotherapy drug, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Circulation.

3 Jan 2022

Introducing deuterium makes drugs to have a longer effect

Hydrogen (abbreviated "H") is the lightest of all elements. It usually consists only of a positively charged proton and a negatively charged electron and is also called protium in this form. But there are also two heavier hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium.

24 Dec 2021

Doctors advised to prescribe fewer antidepressants and for shorter periods of time

Doctors should prescribe fewer antidepressants and for shorter periods of time, because of the ongoing uncertainties about their effectiveness and the potential severity and durability of the withdrawal symptoms associated with them, suggests a review of the evidence on antidepressant use, published online in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin.

21 Dec 2021

Report quantifies health and wellbeing benefits of the UK's woodlands

Visits to the UK's woodlands boosts mental health and is estimated to save £185 million in treatment costs annually, a landmark report published by Forest Research finds today (4 December).

4 Dec 2021

Treating depression with an app

News-Medical talks to Dr. Mann and Dr. Shah about the Columbia Psychiatry Pathways app and its purpose of improving the treatment of depression.

11 Nov 2021

New target for drug development could fill a major gap in depression treatment

Vanderbilt researchers found that ketamine's rapid antidepressant action is due to specific synaptic effects.

10 Nov 2021

MRI brain imaging biomarkers bring new levels of precision for prescribing antidepressants

Research led by UT Southwestern has identified MRI brain imaging biomarkers that bring new levels of precision for prescribing the most effective antidepressants.

9 Nov 2021

Psychiatric drug prevents some of the most serious complications of COVID-19, study finds

Leonard Imbula of the Healthy Mind Lab at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis holds a bottle of fluvoxamine, a psychiatric drug that has been shown, in a pair of studies conducted on two continents, to be an effective treatment for people sick with COVID-19.

9 Nov 2021

Magnus Medical receives FDA's Breakthrough Device Designation for rapid-acting technology to treat major depression

Magnus Medical, Inc., a medical device company, today announced that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has granted the company Breakthrough Device Designation for its individualized, rapid-acting, non-invasive neurostimulation technology designed to treat major depressive disorder (MDD) in people who have not improved sufficiently from antidepressant medication or other treatments.

29 Oct 2021

Can targeting autophagy become a new approach to COVID-19 treatment?

In a recent review, the author discusses autophagy as a contributing mechanism of selected drugs that are currently being evaluated to treat COVID‐19.

25 Oct 2021

Antidepressant offers no improvement in agitation for people with dementia, study shows

A drug used to treat agitation in people with dementia is no more effective than a placebo, and might even increase mortality, according to a new study.

22 Oct 2021

Antidepressant Prozac could offer the first treatment for atrophic macular degeneration

An antidepressant best known as Prozac could offer the first treatment for the leading cause of blindness among people over 50, new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggests.

21 Oct 2021

Post-COVID depressive symptoms respond well to antidepressants, study shows

The COVID pandemic has led to a significant increase in mental health problems. Now, in some good news, a pilot study has shown that depressed patients who have suffered from COVID respond better to standard antidepressants than do people who have not had COVID.

4 Oct 2021

Existing drug used to treat constipation may boost people's ability to think more clearly

The development of drugs to treat cognitive problems in patients with mental illness may be a step closer after a team of researchers discovered that an existing drug - used to treat constipation - may be able to boost our ability to think more clearly.

4 Oct 2021

Depressed adolescents' brains give a muted reaction to distressing images, research finds

Scientists have measured brain activity in young people with and without depression, and found that the brains of depressed adolescents give a muted reaction to distressing images.

3 Oct 2021

Study finds genetic link between driving convictions, accidents and everyday behavior

A new long-term psychological study of drivers has found an association between driving convictions, accidents and everyday behavior such as eating junk food or alcohol consumption.

3 Oct 2021

UVA researchers identify 14 genes that cause obesity

Promising news in the effort to develop drugs to treat obesity: University of Virginia scientists have identified 14 genes that can cause and three that can prevent weight gain. The findings pave the way for treatments to combat a health problem that affects more than 40% of American adults.

1 Oct 2021

Researchers explore the clinical use of intravenous infusions of ketamine to treat depression

Depression is the most common mental illness as well as the number one cause of disability among people between the ages of 15 and 44. And for millions of sufferers, antidepressants have literally saved lives that could otherwise have been lost to suicide.

29 Sep 2021