Antidepressant Effects of Sleep Deprivation are Associated with Increases in BDNF
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a protein that protects neurons and aids with learning and memory. BDNF levels are low in people with depression, and every type of antidepressant treatment increases BDNF, including different types of medications, electro-convulsive therapy, repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), exercise, atypical antipsychotic drugs used to treat bipolar depression, omega-3 fatty acids, and ketamine. New research shows that sleep deprivation, which is sometimes used to rapidly improve depression, also increases BDNF.
A study by researcher Anne Eckert and colleagues found that partial sleep deprivation (preventing sleep only during the second half of one night) increased BDNF levels in the blood the following day. Those participants who responded well to the sleep deprivation were found to have BDNF levels that fluctuated more throughout the day before the sleep deprivation compared to participants who did not respond well to the sleep deprivation, whose BDNF levels were relatively stable.
The research, which was presented at a scientific meeting in 2015, suggests that sleep deprivation in depressed patients increases BDNF, and that such increases are an important function of any antidepressant treatment.