Posted by Alexanderfromdenmark on April 7, 2009, at 12:00:27
In reply to Re: SSRI's and acetylcholine » Alexanderfromdenmark, posted by Garnet71 on April 7, 2009, at 9:46:16
> Hey Alexander -
>
> Do you have a specific link to a resource that explains this concept? I'm very interested in this topic. Yeah, I can google..and search and search...but do you know of a simple summary type webpage or paper offhand that I can start with?
>
> Thanks ~
"Once a patient is diagnosed with a form of anhedonia, in certain embodiments the treatment regimen of the present invention includes the administration of one or more agents capable of directly and/or indirectly increasing the availability of dopamine and/or directly or indirectly increasing the efficiency of dopaminergic activity. In one embodiment, the agent or agents used to treat anhedonia are administered while a patient is undergoing treatment for a major depressive disorder.Specifically, patients diagnosed as exhibiting anhedonia are treated with an effective amount of a pharmaceutically active agent, where the amount of agent and type of agent is sufficient to induce, facilitate, or improve dopaminergic availability and/or neurotransmission efficiency. Compounds that facilitate dopaminergic transmission include dopamine analogues, direct dopamine agonists, indirect dopamine agonists, compounds that induce transcription of genes encoding dopamine receptors, any agent or agents that increase the synthesis and/or release of dopamine, compounds that inhibit transcription of genes encoding DAT, compounds that inhibit dopamine binding by DAT, and/or agents that act through dopamine receptors by either direct and/or indirect action to enhance the efficiency of dopaminergic transmission. For patients diagnosed and treated using the present methods, one practiced in the art can thereby facilitate the return to a state in which positive affect can be triggered by stimuli generally considered to be ordinary and normal by one practiced in the art, and such affect mobilized over its normal range.
Accordingly, the present invention addresses (1) patients exposed to the chronic use of SSRI or SNRI medications who do now and/or will in the future suffer degradation of treatment response as a direct consequence of alterations in dopaminergic transmission efficiency induced by whatever root cause, as well as (2) the significant fraction of patients who spontaneously (e.g., without chronic or significant prior exposure to an SSRI or SNRI) exhibit or develop anhedonic symptoms.
As described above, in certain embodiments, the present invention defines a symptom pattern as treatment emergent anhedonia, or iatrogenic anhedonia, resulting from pharmacological treatment of a patient with an agent or agents that increase serotonin transmission efficiency with or without similar increases in the efficiency and availability of norepinephrine. "
poster:Alexanderfromdenmark
thread:888028
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090330/msgs/889208.html