Glutamatergic neurotransmission,
depression and antidepressants
by
Ferrero A, Cereseto M.
Universidad de Buenos Aires.
aferrero@ffyb.uba.ar
Vertex. 2004 Jun-Aug;15(56):91-8.

ABSTRACT

Depression is a psychiatric disorder that affects 20% of the population. Despite the efforts aimed to identify the mechanisms underlying its behavioral and affective symptoms, no consensus has been reached. In the last years two new theories, the glutamatergic and the genomic ones, have been proposed. Upon the first, the exposition to stressful stimuli increases hippocampal glutamatergic neurotransmission and triggers excitotoxic changes. The second one postulates that depression is closly correlated with neuronal atrophy due to a decrease in BDNF. The aim of this work is to review recent findings about the glutamatergic neurotransmission and its implication in animal models of depression, depressed patients and in both conditions after the antidepressant treatment. We also tried to identify possible links between these observations and the genomic theory.

Mood disorders
Antidepressants
Tranylcypromine
Chronic depression
Atypical depression
Residual depression
Retarded depression
New antidepressants
Refractory depression
Depression and nerve cell death
The monoamine theory of depression

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