Hormonal Treatments for Major Depressive Disorder: State of the Art.

Hormonal Treatments for Major Depressive Disorder: State of the Art. Am J Psychiatry. 2020 May 27;:appiajp202019080848 Authors: Dwyer JB, Aftab A, Widge A, Rodriguez CI, Carpenter LL, Nemeroff CB, Kalin NH, APA Council of Research Task Force on Novel Biomarkers and Treatments Abstract Major depressive disorder is a common psychiatric disorder associated with marked suffering, morbidity, mortality, and cost. The World Health Organization projects that by 2030, major depression will be the leading cause of disease burden worldwide. While numerous treatments for major depression exist, many patients do not respond adequately to traditional antidepressants. Thus, more effective treatments for major depression are needed, and targeting certain hormonal systems is a conceptually based approach that has shown promise in the treatment of this disorder. A number of hormones and hormone-manipulating compounds have been evaluated as monotherapies or adjunctive treatments for major depression, with therapeutic actions attributable not only to the modulation of endocrine systems in the periphery but also to the CNS effects of hormones on non-endocrine brain circuitry. The authors describe the physiology of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA), hypothalamic-pituitary thyroid (HPT), and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axes and review the evidence for selected hormone-based interventions for the treatment of depression in order to provide a...
Source: The American Journal of Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Am J Psychiatry Source Type: research