More Monoamines Needed

St. John's Wort

From the files of Dr. Jeffrey Meyer comes another monoamine deficiency study; this time around he and his team of colleagues have examined the effectiveness of MAOIs on the enzyme MAO-A Vt, which breaks down monoamines, and the effectiveness of traditional herbal alternative St. John's Wort on the same enzyme. They found that MAOIs were successful and that St. John's Wort did not have a clinically significant effect. This study also discusses how the antidepressant market has shifted to focus on the development of SSRIs, perhaps because they have less drug interactions and possibly less side effects, and has moved away from the development of new MAOIs. It is implied that the development of MAOIs would be useful due to their effects on more monoamines than just serotonin. This study states that SSRIs work for merely half of the depressed patients treated with them. This indicates that in many patients the correction of the lack of serotonin is not enough to help induce recovery if other monoamines remain in deficient quantities.

As you may have guessed, while there is not as much research on the subject of monoamine deficiency as I would like, Dr. Jeffrey Meyer is not the only scientist leading studies on the subject. Another significant study  was conducted to determine whether brain serotonin turnover was greater in depressed patients who were not medicated with SSRIs. This study found this to be true. Patients treated with SSRIs had decrease brain serotonin turnover. This, it seems, is not an uncommon or unexpected finding. After reviewing the work of Dr. Jeffrey Meyer and other scientists, I would venture to say that it is much less than ridiculous to theorize that monoamine deficiency is correlated with depression, and that the antidepressants that are currently on the market do target and positively affect this deficiency. This study also discussed the effects of a particular gene on monoamine deficiency. This finding is significant because it points to a very direct biological way in which some genes can predispose depression.

I have discussed the monoamine theory of depression much in my recent posts. However, I would like to reiterate that I would never go so far as to claim that depression is completely induced by this monoamine deficiency. The effects of the environment cannot be dismissed. I do not think that depression is a simple enough disease to have any one cause. As this malady is complex, so must be the remedy. In my next posts, I will further discuss genetic predisposition, alternative treatments, and talk therapy to illustrate the relation between a comprehensive treatment plan and a successful use of an antidepressant.

Meyer, Jeffrey, and Julia Sacher. "Monoamine Oxidase A Inhibitor Occupancy during Treatment of Major Depressive Episodes with Moclobemide or St. John’s Wort: An [11C]-harmine PET Study." Web. 21 Mar. 2012.

Barton, David A., Murray D. Elser, Tye Dawood, and Elisabeth A. Lambert. "Elevated Brain Serotonin Turnover in Patients With Depression: Effect of Genotype and Therapy." Archives of General Psychiatry, a Monthly Peer-reviewed Medical Journal Published by AMA. Jan. 2008. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/65/1/38>.

Digital image. Methods of Healing. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://www.methodsofhealing.com/files/2009/07/st-johns-wort.jpg>.