Recent developments and current controversies in depression
by
Ebmeier KP, Donaghey C, Steele JD.
Division of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh,
Kennedy Tower, Morningside Park,
Edinburgh, UK.
k.ebmeier@ed.ac.uk
Lancet. 2006 Jan 14;367(9505):153-67.

ABSTRACT

In this review of the last 5 years' developments in research into depression we focus on recent advances and current controversies. We cover epidemiology and basic science as well as the treatment of depression in adults in all its forms. Depression in children, as well as in adults, has been covered in recent Seminars in The Lancet. Depression in adulthood remains a very common and under-treated condition, resulting in a high degree of disability. Increasingly detailed knowledge about impairment of information processing in depression is being supplemented by quantitative studies of the brain processes underlying these impairments. Most patients improve with present treatments. The mechanisms of action of antidepressants are not fully understood; the hypothesis that reversing hippocampal cell loss in depression may be their active principle is a fascinating new development. Moral panic about the claim that antidepressant serotonin reuptake inhibitors cause patients to commit suicide and become addicted to their medication may have disconcerted the public and members of the medical profession. We will try to describe the considerable effort that has gone into collecting evidence to enlighten this debate.

Relapse
Agomelatine
Adult neurogenesis
Atypical depression
Retarded depression
Genes and mental illness
BDNF and new brain cells
Cannabinoids/neurogenesis
Basic fibroblast growth factor
Depression and antidepressants
Antidepressants and neuroplasticity
Antidepressants and new brain cells
Sleep deprivation triggers new brain cells
Dopamine and dopaminergic antidepressants
A new theory of depression and antidepressants
A neurotrophic model for stress-related mood disorders
Selective publication of clinical trials leads to unrealistic estimates of antidepressant efficacy

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