Posted by desolationrower on June 24, 2011, at 20:48:59
In reply to Memantine for anxiety and depression, posted by jms600 on June 24, 2011, at 16:05:27
> I was on a memantine drug trial a few years ago for an eye condition that I suffer from. While taking the drug I noticed that it had a real calming effect along with antidepressant properties. I know it wasn't placebo effect as I was told after the trial ended that I had been given the memantine.
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> I was also taking 60mg of Prozac at the time for depression, which wasn't helping on it's own.
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> I really did start to feel better on the drug. Okay, not 100%, but I certainly noticed an improvement.
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> Why did memantine help so much when most of the antidepressants, antipsychotics and anxiolytics have failed??
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> From the brief research I have done, memantine seems to have a four fold effect - antagonist of the glutamatergic NMDA receptors, antagonist of 5-HT3 receptors, antagonist of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, and agonist of D2 receptors.
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> Can anyone tell me which mode of the above actions is most likely responsible for it's calming and antidepressant effects??
>D2 might help for social anxiety, glutamate (nmda) for OCD. Those are the two most provent mechanism->DX associations i think.
-d/r
PS: Just because you took a chemical other than glucose doesn't mean you didn't experience Placebo effect. In these "Placebo vs. Drug" trials, you test vs placebo because in the drug group, some people will experience placebo effect, and you want to see how many people improve *beyond* how many benefited from placebo. Back in the bad old days, you only trialed the drug, and usually you seen an improvement, and that improvement might just have been placebo.
Better living through chemistry, socialism, and big phallic rockets (with a side of roquette)
poster:desolationrower
thread:989319
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110619/msgs/989352.html