Scientists "fingerprint" a culprit in depression, anxiety and other mood disorders

[bananas]

"the researchers found a connection between this particular microRNA, (miR135), and two proteins that play a key role in serotonin production and the regulation of its activities."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/278565.php

Scientists "fingerprint" a culprit in depression, anxiety and other mood disorders
Monday 23 June 2014

According to the World Health Organization, such mood disorders as depression affect some 10% of the world's population and are associated with a heavy burden of disease. That is why numerous scientists around the world have invested a great deal of effort in understanding these diseases. Yet the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie these problems are still only partly understood.

The existing anti-depressants are not good enough: Some 60-70% of patients get no relief from them. For the other 30-40%, that relief is often incomplete, and they must take the drugs for a long period before feeling any effects. In addition, there are many side effects associated with the drugs. New and better drugs are clearly needed, an undertaking that requires, first and foremost, a better understanding of the processes and causes underlying the disorders.

The Weizmann Institute's Prof. Alon Chen, together with his then PhD student Dr. Orna Issler, investigated the molecular mechanisms of the brain's serotonin system, which, when misregulated, is involved in depression and anxiety disorders. Chen and his colleagues researched the role of microRNA molecules (small, non-coding RNA molecules that regulate various cellular activities) in the nerve cells that produce serotonin. They succeeded in identifying, for the first time, the unique "fingerprints" of a microRNA molecule that acts on the serotonin-producing nerve cells. Combining bioinformatics methods with experiments, the researchers found a connection between this particular microRNA, (miR135), and two proteins that play a key role in serotonin production and the regulation of its activities. The findings appeared recently in Neuron.

The scientists noted that in the area of the brain containing the serotonin-producing nerve cells, miR135 levels increased when antidepressant compounds were introduced. Mice that were genetically engineered to produce higher-than-average amounts of the microRNA were more resistant to constant stress: They did not develop any of the behaviors associated with chronic stress, such as anxiety or depression, which would normally appear. In contrast, mice that expressed low levels of miR135 exhibited more of these behaviors; in addition, their response to antidepressants was weaker. In other words, the brain needs the proper miR135 levels - low enough to enable a healthy stress response and high enough to avoid depression or anxiety disorders and to respond to serotonin-boosting antidepressants. When this idea was tested on human blood samples, the researchers found that subjects who suffered from depression had unusually low miR135 levels in their blood. On closer inspection, the scientists discovered that the three genes involved in producing miR135 are located in areas of the genome that are known to be associated with risk factors for bipolar mood disorders.

<snip>

[ellenrr]

1. there is no scientific evidence that serotonin is involved in depression

no scientific evidence for a "chemical imbalance"

90% of the serotonin in the body is in the stomach not the brain.
the amount of serotonin in the brain cannot be measured until the person is dead.

but the powers would rather look for a mythical genetic component that for the true causes of depression:
poverty, dislocation, lack of meaning in life...

for more see Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020392

[bananas]

2. Amazing, isn't it? nt

[valerief]

3. So they can sell pills. And rich people will get richer. nt

[get the red out]

4. Their "pills" have given me a life

Should I have not accepted a chance at enjoying my life? I resisted for 20 years of misery trying to be "good", and a proper anti-big-pharm person, 20 years of misery and life wasted. I can live my life with the help of these CHEAP, GENERIC medications.

I just wanted to share an alternative perspective. I cherish my life today, where I was once plagued with constant thoughts of suicide. And yes I did try, meditation, herbal remedies, talk therapy for years (which is now helping since I have medicinal help). I tried so hard to be "good", I really did.

[A Little Weird]

8. +1

I'm glad you've been helped by these meds. They have been a godsend to my mom who struggled with depression for years. The change in her was obvious to everyone and she is much happier now.

There are many valid reasons to criticize "big pharma" - and we should subject them to more stringent oversight. But it's silly to think that they are nothing but pill pushers that are only out to scam you.

[DeadLetterOffice]

9. Me as well.

Years of a crippling panic disorder that didn't respond to all my efforts to "get better." Years of added shame and self-blame that I couldn't just think my way to healthy. Years of skirting a major depression because the panic left me so isolated and afraid.

My (generic, extensively researched) meds help. I still struggle, but I have a life now -- a family, a job, friends. I can go out into the world and *do* things.

Not all medication is evil. Not all new research is Big Pharma trying to get deeper in to our wallets.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

13. +1

The folks who bitch about antidepressants have never truly been down in The Hole. Are antidepressants over prescribed? Yes. Do some of them have serious side effects? Yes. Does that mean antidepressants are "evil"? Oh, hell no.

Antidepressants saved my life when nothing else would. I didn't suffer from "poverty". I didn't suffer from "displacement". My life was good. I was depressed for no damn good reason. Waking up every day not wanting to be on this planet. Therapy, acupuncture, herbs, vitamins, SamE, St. Johns wart -- you name it, I tried it. 30mg of Celexa enabled me to resume LIVING my life. Over the 10 years I have been on it, I have tried to taper off a few times to see if I could go off the meds -- within days I am back in The Hole. If I have to take Celexa for the rest of my life, so be it.

I am thrilled that this new research may open up new treatment option for those of us who suffer from clinical depression.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. My one major depression was caused by life circumstances, BUT...

the depression itself made me unable to do anything about it. I was slipping farther and farther into misery.

Anti-depressants halted the slide, and although they didn't solve the external problems, they made me capable of taking action to get out of the situation that was making me unhappy.

[tridim]

5. Another big pharma scam to add to the growing list. Losing trust. nt

[HereSince1628]

10. "Chemical imbalance" theory is very appealing for many reasons,

which is why as a theory it is so popular, particularly outside of psychiatric research. And, IMO, that's why it gets overplayed.

Americans love pharmacological bullets, the pharmaceutical industry loves the profits available producing them, family members of and persons with mental illness, including me, yearn for explanations about mental illness that don't point to mental illness as evidence of character flaws, or always the failure to make always available free choices to not behave badly.

It's clear that as a social meme 'chemical imbalance' is misunderstood and exploited by both well meaning people and by profit seeking marketeers.

What isn't quite so obvious to many is that biological understanding is hierarchically arranged (chemicals>molecules>membranes-organelles>cells>tissues, organs>organ systems>organisms>populations>natural communities>ecosystems). Consequently, biology can be approached under various guiding philosophies that approach this hierarchy from different perspectives, that reveal it isn't going to be possible to escape the importance of chemistry and molecular biology to understanding mental function.

One perspective is reductionism...a search for structure and function at finer and finer levels of biological organization.
Ultimately, this results in consideration of phenomena at a chemical and molecular level...a level at which pharmaceutical bullets function. Moreover, molecular biology is tremendously popular field, well populated by researchers who regularly deliver as outcomes of productive careers, information about phenomena at that level.

Another perspective is integrationism the search for understanding of interactions among components, and environment, at all levels of biological organization. Integrationism depends upon knowledge of underlying mechanisms but tends to focus on phenomenological outcomes to which they contribute, which is to say it tends to answer the question 'so what?'. Integrationism which often tends towards theoretical methods isn't nearly as popular as reductionism. Integrationist pursuits are largely not taught in the BSCS curricula that dominates American biological education at all levels.

To illustrate these perspectives I'll present an analogy and I know analogy always fails when pressed. If you consider the structure and activity of a wind-up pocket watch, you can be interested in the metalurgical and manufacturing details of the hairspring or jeweled bearings (i.e. a reductionist perspective) critical to the function of the escapement mechanism that allows the stepwise release of energy that ticks off time and enables the various gears and hands of the watch to turn. Or you can be interested in the synchronizing of the setting of the time between time pieces so that you arrive at work on time, keep appointments, and/or don't burn pizzas in the oven (an integrationist perspective) and getting daylight savings time and leap-years correct.

The watch exists as a complex system that allows all these types of examination and consideration. So do biological phenomena.

Reductionists are interested in what makes cells, and molecular biology tick. And all that stuff in cells and between cells are either gene products, or are likely 'worked upon', in one way or another, by gene products. There is good reason for biologists to be interested in life at that level. There are certainly many answers to be found to interesting questions at that level.

Yet, to us outside those pursuits it seems the 'gene jockeys' do too often lose sight of a bigger picture. For example, the big picture for depression shows that in members of many gregarious species... dolphins, elephants, horses and humans depression can result from a lack of satisfying interactions with others of our type or surrogates of other species. Which is to say, features outside the skins of these animals contributes to their psychological well-being.

It's fairly clear, but not at all well understood in detail, that a high level processes such as social interaction get communicated down to cellular and molecular level where they contribute to processes that echo back up through the biological system to produce overall behavioral phenomena that are recognized as depression.

In this sense meaningful conversations can be had about neurotransmitters, neuro-receptors, modulators, endocrine intermediaries, interactions/interference between molecules, defects in structure/organization or functionm of molecules, cells and tissue and the mutations/deficits that cause them --as well as-- organismal-environmental phenomena like a life in poverty, captivity in solitary confinement, etc.

IMO, phenomena at the chemical/molecular level of organization can't be overlooked if we want a complete understanding to be achieved. Therefore phenomena that contribute to depression at the environmental level and the chemical level shouldn't be looked upon as necessarily mutually exclusive, even while 'the chemical imbalance theory' is being overplayed in our society.

[OregonBlue]

12. Perhaps no scientific evidence but plenty of evidence none the less.

If it weren't for bi-polar and depression medications, my son would not be alive. He has tried them all and it took 20 years but he's on a good combination and it more stable than I've ever seen him. We don't have all the answers but I'm glad some scientists are working on it.

[LiberalEsto]

6. This gives me hope

I have chronic low-level depression, with bouts of severe depression. It runs in my family. My mother didn't have the benefit of modern medical treatment. She spent the last years of her life mostly in bed, hooked on prescription painkillers provided by the quack who was her psychiatrist.

If I didn't have the meds I currently take, it's possible I would have killed myself by now.

[get the red out]

11. Right there with you

Glad some of us are speaking up about this issue.

[ReRe]

7. What we need to do to help cure...

... these disorders is to fix the GD society we live in. If people didn't have so much to have to cope with, they wouldn't get as depressed as they do. It's damn hard to live in this country, contrary to what they tell us all the time, that "this is the greatest country in the world." In a fight all the time about our basic rights, trying to raise happy well-adjusted children with politicians having temper tantrums and talking ugly in front of the camera all the time, and on and on and on. Life pretty much sucks for everyone, unless you find yourself among the 1%.

I'm not knocking the meds to help one cope. One has to do what one has to do to put one foot in front of the other. However, a drug that's good for one person, might not work in another person. Some times, you have to try numerous drugs before you find one that works. That's depressing in itself!