Serotonin News and Research

Latest Serotonin News and Research

Less children and teens taking antidepressants

The number of children and teenagers prescribed antidepressant medications appears to have decreased following public warnings about suicidal behavior potentially associated with the drugs, according to a report published in the April issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

4 Apr 2007

Playing in the dirt to counter depression

Treatment of mice with a "friendly" bacteria, normally found in the soil, altered their behavior in a way similar to that produced by antidepressant drugs, reports research published in the latest issue of Neuroscience.

2 Apr 2007

Clinical trial of a medication to treat kleptomania

A small clinical trial of a medication to treat kleptomania has failed to find any conclusive benefit for patients with the impulsive stealing disorder, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

14 Mar 2007

Talk therapy works for panic disorder

Psychoanalytic therapies have been in professional use for over a century, but a new study from physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center is the first to show that a classic psychoanalytic talk therapy is efficacious in treating panic disorder.

14 Mar 2007

Shyness, genetics and parents

New research from the Child Development Laboratory at the University of Maryland shows that shyness in kids could relate to the manner in which a stress-related gene in children interacts with being raised by stressed-out parents.

5 Mar 2007

FDA approves antidepressant Cymbalta (duloxetine HCl) for treatment of generalized anxiety disorder

Eli Lilly and Company announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the antidepressant Cymbalta (duloxetine HCl) for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a condition that affects more than 6.5 million American adults in a given year.

26 Feb 2007

CeNeRx BioPharma starts human trials of RIMA antidepressant

CeNeRx BioPharma, Inc. has announced the initiation of human clinical trials of Tyrima, CeNeRx's new drug candidate with a triple mechanism of action for the treatment of depression and anxiety.

30 Jan 2007

Taste may give a clue in how to treat depression

Researchers in the UK have found that taste tests could determine the cause of depression in patients and also indicate which is the best drug to treat the illness.

6 Dec 2006

Ecstasy harmful to the brain even in small doses

Dutch researchers have found that even a small amount of ecstasy can be harmful to the brain.

29 Nov 2006

New evidence says SIDS caused by abnormality in the brainstem

According to a new study by researchers in the U.S. some babies who die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) do so because of an abnormality in the serotonin system in their brains.

1 Nov 2006

Potential for first diagnostic DNA test to guide antidepressant treatment

Treatment of depression is difficult for both patients and for psychiatrists. While there are numerous drugs available that work, finding the right one -- or right combination -- is, at times, a matter of trial and error.

31 Oct 2006

Paroxetine effective in treating patients with compulsive hoarding syndrome

In a paper published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, Sanjaya Saxena, M.D., Director of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders (OCD) Program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, reports the surprising finding that the serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) medication, paroxetine, is effective in treating patients with compulsive hoarding syndrome.

24 Oct 2006

Nicotine shows potential medical benefits

Nicotine may improve the symptoms of depression in people who do not smoke, Duke University Medical Center scientists have discovered.

12 Sep 2006

SSRIs associated with severe violence in a small number of individuals

Use of one class of antidepressant drugs, the SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), may be associated with severe violence in a small number of individuals say the authors of paper published in PLoS Medicine.

12 Sep 2006

New drug sorts out premature ejaculation

According the American Urological Association, premature ejaculation affects about 20% of males in the U.S. aged 18-59.

11 Sep 2006

SSRI's developed for premature ejaculation, safe and effective

A selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) developed specifically for the treatment of premature ejaculation is safe and effective for men severely affected by the condition, according to an Article in this week's issue of The Lancet.

7 Sep 2006

New cell-based targets for treating autoimmune inflammatory diseases

Patients with systemic autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often suffer loss of kidney function.

31 Aug 2006

Serotonin reciprocally regulates melanocortin neurons to modulate food intake

Some of the most important weight-loss drugs work by enhancing the effect of the brain chemical serotonin.

24 Jul 2006

"Magic" mushrooms create profound mystical experience and change behaviour

A group of healthy well educated volunteers appear to have achieved some sort of profound mystical experience that led to behaviour changes lasting for weeks after taking a drug derived from 'magic mushrooms'.

12 Jul 2006

Hallucinogen in mushrooms creates mystical/spiritual experiences

Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in "sacred mushrooms" can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.

11 Jul 2006