According to a report from the Yale School of Medicine, which the researchers hope will lead to the development of a new and more powerful anti depression drug, they have found that by enhancing a gene
related to exercise in the brain, it worked like an anti depressant in mice
They feel that the VGF exercise-related gene and target for drug development will be a better treatment than chemical antidepressants, because it occurs in the brain naturally.
Depression is a very serious condition, affecting about 16% of the people in the United States alone and it costs an estimated $83 billion yearly. The medications that are currently used work effectively in only 65% of the patients and they take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to begin to bring relief.
They have known for a long time that exercise is an important factor in improving brain function as well as mental health. It is also known to provide protection in the event a person experiences brain injury of disease. What they did not know is how it works.
Working on the fact that the current medications take such a long time to work is an indication that there are some neuronal adaptation or plasticity is needed they designed a custom made microarray that was optimized to be able to show any small changes that occurred in the gene expressing, especially in the hippocampus region of the brain, which is very sensitive to both stress hormones, depression as well as anti-depressants. They then compared the brain activity in resting mice to mice who were given running wheels. They saw that the mice with the wheels were running 6 miles a night, one week later. They did 4 different array analyses of the mice and found as many as 33 hippocampal exercise-regulated genes, 27 of which had never been seen before.
One gene, VGF, in particular and its action greatly increased by the exercise. When they administered VGF, it acted like a powerful anti depressant while at the same time blocking VGF inhibited the effects of exercise and it induced depressive like behavior in mice.
They feel that the VGF exercise-related gene and target for drug development will be a better treatment than chemical antidepressants, because it occurs in the brain naturally.
Depression is a very serious condition, affecting about 16% of the people in the United States alone and it costs an estimated $83 billion yearly. The medications that are currently used work effectively in only 65% of the patients and they take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to begin to bring relief.
They have known for a long time that exercise is an important factor in improving brain function as well as mental health. It is also known to provide protection in the event a person experiences brain injury of disease. What they did not know is how it works.
Working on the fact that the current medications take such a long time to work is an indication that there are some neuronal adaptation or plasticity is needed they designed a custom made microarray that was optimized to be able to show any small changes that occurred in the gene expressing, especially in the hippocampus region of the brain, which is very sensitive to both stress hormones, depression as well as anti-depressants. They then compared the brain activity in resting mice to mice who were given running wheels. They saw that the mice with the wheels were running 6 miles a night, one week later. They did 4 different array analyses of the mice and found as many as 33 hippocampal exercise-regulated genes, 27 of which had never been seen before.
One gene, VGF, in particular and its action greatly increased by the exercise. When they administered VGF, it acted like a powerful anti depressant while at the same time blocking VGF inhibited the effects of exercise and it induced depressive like behavior in mice.
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