Cariprazine Effective in AD-Resistant MDD
Maletic, V, et al. reported on Efficacy of Adjunctive Cariprazine Across Individual Depressive Symptoms in Major Depressive Disorder: A Post-Hoc Analysis. Poster presented at Psych Congress 2022; September 17-20, 2022.
“With 751 patients (502 on CARIPRAZINE (CAR) and 249 on PBO), the LSMD (95% CI) score change from baseline to week 6 was significant in favor of CAR. Items of the MADRS scale were assessed individually over the course of the study, including apparent sadness, reported sadness, reduced appetite, lassitude, inability to feel, pessimistic thoughts, and suicidal thoughts, showing improvement compared to PBO. “
A NEW VIEW ON MEMORY TO REMEMBER
Steven Ramirez PhD of Boston University gave a talk (8/9/22) on memory for the BBRF hosted by Jeffrey Borenstein President & CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. Ramirez showed that positive (food) and negative (shock) memories of different places were stored in different neurons of the hippocampus. If he turned on the positive memories with optical stimulation while a mouse was in a negative memory place and would ordinarily show freezing representing fear behavior, much less freezing occurred with the insertion of the positive memory. Positive memories appear to trump negative memories.
Ramirez found score of genes were activated or turned off in the positive memory cells, some of which, but not all, overlapped with the negative memory cells. Remarkably, the bulk of the unique positive memory genes were related to synaptogenesis and neuroprotection, while the bulk of genes unique to the negative memory cells were related cell death and other toxic factors. Ramirez hopes these data will provide clues to not only helping people with PTSD, but also ultimately providing targets for providing protection against degenerative diseases.
When Ramirez was asked by Borenstein what people could do now, he related his own experience of every morning filling out a form for gratitude and gratefulness for at least 3 things he could be grateful for the previous day or anticipated for the current day. The positive memories that this invoked in him set up his positive and optimistic attitudes for the rest of the day. He recommends this approach of positive memories modulating the current pervasive stressors of the day. For people interested in the details of his experiments summarized above, they should look for the in press articles of Grella et al Nature Communications and Shpokayte et al Nature Communications.
First and Only Oral NDMA Receptor Antagonist for MDD Can Now Be Prescribed
| October 28, 2022 |
| FEATURED NEWS: First and Only Oral NDMA Receptor Antagonist for MDD Can Now Be Prescribed Extended-release dextromethorphan HBr-bupropion HCl (Auvelity™), the only oral N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist approved for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), is now available by prescription in the United States, maker Axsome Therapeutics Inc. announced. The drug is supplied in 105-mg tablets in 30-count bottles.On August 18th, 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dextromethorphan HBr-bupropion HCl extended-release tablets 45mg/105mg |
