How Antidepressant Drugs Work and Why Others Don't Feel Relief

Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses on the planet. Many rely on antidepressant drugs to go about their day. A recent study looks at how these antidepressant drugs work, how it influences a person and suggests an alternative new drug that could better influence people struggling with depression.

What is Major Depressive Disorder?

(Photo: Brett Sayles from Pexels)

Major depressive disorder, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a mood disorder that often causes persistent feelings of loss and sadness. Clinical depression affects how a person feels, thinks, and behaves and may lead to a wide variety of emotional and physical problems. These people often have trouble doing normal daily activities and sometimes feel like life isn't worth living.

Although depression may occur only once during a person's life, some people that have multiple episodes may have symptoms such as feelings of emptiness, angry & irritability bursts over small matters, loss of interest, sleep disturbances, tiredness, reduced or loss of appetites, anxiety, agitation, slowness in speaking & thinking, trouble concentrating, and more.

The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 280 million people have Major depressive disorder and is currently the 12th leading cause of disability in the globe.

ALSO READ: Social Media Use Linked to Depression in Middle-Aged Adults as It Makes Them Feel Older, Harvard Study Claims

How Antidepressants Work and Why It Doesn't Work for Others?

Like most drugs developed, antidepressants were created via trial and observation. Up until today, it largely remains a mystery as to why they work for some people and not for others. Roughly 40% of patients with MDD don't respond adequately to antidepressant drugs, and when they do, it takes several weeks for the drugs to provide some relief.

To better understand the delayed mechanisms involved in the drugs, a team of researchers examined mouse models with chronic stress that leads to behavioral changes controlled by the hippocampus-a structure deep in the temporal lobe of the brain.

The brain's hippocampus is vulnerable to atrophies and stress in people with MDD and schizophrenia. Mice that have been exposed to chronic stress experience cognitive deficits, a known hallmark of impaired hippocampal function.

Leaders of the study Dane Chetkovich, MD, and Margaret and John Warner, chair of the Department of Neurology, explains that cognitive impairment is a vital feature of Major Depressive disorder, where patients often report difficulties at school and work and are some of the most challenging parts of living with depression.

In a study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, titled "Hippocampal cAMP regulates HCN channel function on two time scales with differential effects on animal behavior," researchers focused on ion transporter channels in the nerve cell membrane known as the HCN channel. They have been previously known to have a key role in depression and separately a role in regulating cognition. According to the authors of the study, this is the first study conducted to explicitly like the two observations, reports Neuroscience.

Results of the study showed that turning up cAMP initially increases the activity in the HCN channel and limits the intended effects of antidepressants imposing deleterious effects on cognition.