Posted by linkadge on January 27, 2009, at 9:54:20
In reply to Re: Blood BDNF reflects brain: Potential Treatment » desolationrower, posted by SLS on January 27, 2009, at 7:17:40
>Apparantly BDNF is not by itself a cause for >depression and mania, but is associated with >different mood states and is necessary for >antidepressants to do their work.
I disagree. There is no proff that BDNF is necessary for antidepressants to work. There are sevral studies which demonstrate that oftentimes clinically effective antdepressants work in the absence of any form of BDNF modulation. A quick search on pubmed also reveals severals studies of novel antidepressant compounds which do not modulate BDNF. If you expanded that claim to suggest it is the modulation of "growth factors" that is the target of antidepresants, this might be harder to refute. It has recently been demonstrated, for instance, that the growth factor VEGF appears to have some sort of antidepressant effects.
But, many studies are arising which are countering the notion that BDNF increase is a class effect of antidepressants.
>I sure don't know everything there is to know >about BDNF, however, I hope my brain levels of >it increase so that I can come closer to doing >so.
Excessive levels of BDNF can have negative effects on mental health. For instance, certain models of epilepsy are associated with really high BDNF levels. As well, boosing BDNF in certain brain regions appears to cause sensorimotor gating deficits as seen in schizophrenia.
Linkadge
poster:linkadge
thread:876377
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/876526.html