Posted by SLS on December 27, 2013, at 15:02:41
In reply to Re: once a month, posted by Jeroen on December 27, 2013, at 13:47:18
> thanks Scott
You know that minocycline acts to reduce overactive glutamate activity, right? In my mind, that should, theoretically, help to lessen positive symptoms. I am probably wrong, though. It turns out that if you give minocycline early in the course of the illness, it helps predominantly with negative symptoms.
You can think of it as a much more potent antiglutamate agent than glycine. However, minocycline has some pretty potent antidepressant effects as well. And if that weren't enough, it is neuroprotective and perhaps even supports neurogenesis. (Neurogenesis has been proven in rats, but this does not translate well to primates like you and me). Minocycline even acts to reduce brain inflammation, for whatever therapeutic benefit this property offers. I am not convinced that inflammation causes depression, but might be the result of psychosocial stress and eventually, the stresses that accompany depression. It is therefore a biomarker of stress, but not necessarily depression. With depression, I think it might be a self-reinforcing cycle in which inflammation and depression feed off of one another.
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120803/msgs/1023257.html
Do you have any other questions about minocycline?
It is crucial to think of minocycline as a drug with many actions, only one of which is antibiotic. It is not an antibiotic drug. It is a drug with antibiotic properties. It is also a drug with antidepressant properties, and perhaps antipsychotic properties.
Minocycline might turn out to be like aspirin for the brain. It does so many things, and they are discovering more about it all the time.
Minocycline + Abilify might make for a particularly effective combination via inhibition of microglial activity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24100191
Like I said, it would be a mistake to think of minocycline as an antibiotic when it comes to treating mental illness. Of course, its antibiotic activity can help with Lyme Disease.
The first few days of minocycline therapy might make you feel overstimulated. Stick with it. It will likely dissipate.
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1056998
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20131209/msgs/1057040.html