Discovery lifts hopes for new depression treatment

SCIENTISTS have created a potential new treatment for depression by combining pain relief medication with one for combating addiction.

Current antidepressants, called SSRIs, raise serotonin levels in the brain although the exact mechanism by which they work is unclear.

Between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of patients do not respond to the treatment, which can take several weeks to work and cause significant side effects, researchers say.

A team at Bath University have combined buprenorphine, a post-surgery painkiller, and naltrexone, a drug used for treating addiction.

The combination targets a different pathway in the brain to SSRIs and yielded antidepressant-like responses in trials with mice.

Researchers believe the time it would take to perform clinical trials and gain regulatory approval for the treatment could be reduced as both drugs are already licensed for other conditions.

Dr Sarah Bailey, senior lecturer at the University of Bath’s Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology, said: “While SSRIs work for a lot of people, they can cause side effects and don’t work for all.

“No new drugs for depression have been developed for decades — they all work in a similar way — so there’s an urgent need to develop new treatments for this condition that affects around four million adults in the UK.”

Buprenorphine reduces the patient’s response to stress by blocking a receptor in the brain called the kappa opioid.

However, it also stimulates a related receptor called the mu opioid, which could cause addictive effects. To counter this, scientists used the anti-addiction drug naltrexone to block the mu receptor.