Plasma Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in treatment-resistant depressed patients receiving electroconvulsive therapy.
There is an increasing evidence that the Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) could be involved in the mode of action of antidepressants and, perhaps, of ECT. This study aimed to investigate whether the clinical course of medication-resistant depressed patients following a course of ECT might be associated with changes of plasma BDNF concentrations. Our findings showed that at T0 (baseline) plasma BDNF levels of patients were significantly lower than those of control subjects, and that at T2 (after ECT) were significantly increased in parallel with the decrease of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) total score. However, only remitter patients who showed higher baseline BDNF levels than non-remitters reached normalized BDNF levels after ECT. These findings would suggest the potential usefulness of baseline plasma BDNF levels as predictors of response to ECT in treatment-resistant depressed patients.
Piccinni
Armando
A
Dipartimento di Psichiatria, Neurobiologia, Farmacologia e Biotecnologie, University of Pisa, Via Roma 67, Pisa, Italy.
Del Debbio
Alessandro
A
Medda
Pierpaolo
P
Bianchi
Carolina
C
Roncaglia
Isabella
I
Veltri
Antonello
A
Zanello
Sara
S
Massimetti
Enrico
E
Origlia
Nicola
N
Domenici
Luciano
L
Marazziti
Donatella
D
Dell'Osso
Liliana
L
D000328:Adult; D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor / Q000097:blood*; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000097:blood* / Q000628:therapy*; D004565:Electroconvulsive Therapy; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor