Posted by SLS on November 22, 2010, at 6:47:37
In reply to Re: New drug for depression - Long wait until approval, posted by bleauberry on November 22, 2010, at 5:59:49
> What strikes me odd is how they claim stress hormones cause the problems that lead to depression and this medicine repairs the damage.....yet not a thought to....how about let's deal with those stress hormones? Duh?
Well, in drug development, we have different strategies to synthesize and identify candidates for therapeutic compounds. With psychiatric drugs, there are paradigms that screen for psychotropic drugs that involve little more than trial-and-error with rats. The synthesis of designer drugs based upon theoretical mechanisms of action often results in failure because so little is understood about the etiology of affective disorders. So, drugs are screened empirically using behavioral indexes. The reason I mention all of this is that it is very likely that this new compound has shown antidepressant activity using empirical paradigms that have been established as effective for identifying antidepressant drugs. In other words, any reference to the mechanisms of action of the new drug is really just an educated guess based upon the various theories currently being suggested.
- Scott
Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.
poster:SLS
thread:970896
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101117/msgs/970988.html