This could be a breakthrough in treating depression. The substance marked with the symbol CGP3466B alleviates its symptoms in just a few hours, not weeks or months, as most drugs used so far.
Scientists have high hopes for CGP3466B because previous clinical trials of the drug in Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease patients have shown that while it is not effective in these conditions, it is non-toxic and not addictive. Research on rodents has shown that it can effectively and quickly relieve symptoms of depression.
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According to Professor Solomon Snyder, co-author of the paper published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, one of the very promising features of the new drug is that it acts on completely different proteins than currently used drugs. “This means that it may be effective in patients who do not respond to the types of antidepressants currently used, and become the starting point for the development of a new class of fast-acting drugs for depression” – says the neurobiologist.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, USA have long known that CGP3466B inhibits rodents’ attraction to cocaine. In experiments on mouse nerve cells, researchers showed that it acts on the same protein pathway as ketamine, used in high doses as an anesthetic in surgical patients, and in low doses to exert a rapid antidepressant effect.
The analgesic and antidepressant effects of ketamine are due to the fact that it binds to NMDA receptors (glutamate receptors) on neurons with stimulating properties. This silences these neurons. CGP3466B, in turn, acts on a protein that is involved in another step in the process. To test whether CGP3466B, like ketamine, can alleviate symptoms consistent with human depression in mice, a team led by Dr. Maged Harraz ran two standard behavioral tests.
In the first one, it was checked how quickly the rodents gave up trying to leave the water tank. It turned out that those given the new drug tried an average of half a minute longer than the mice that did not receive it. In the second, animals given CGP3466B decided twice as fast to get food placed in the exposed space. Both the behavior of rodents is considered to be the opposite of depressive behavior.
“In the second test, the drug only started working half an hour after it was given. Meanwhile, for other antidepressants that were previously tested in mice, such as fluoxetine (a component of Prozak – PAP), it took up to three weeks to achieve similar results in an identical test, ”emphasizes Dr. Harraz.
All this looks very promising, but it is likely that it will be several years before clinical trials of this drug begin in patients with depression.