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Both exercise and antidepressants alleviate depression by stimulating neurogenesis

« H E » email
posted Friday, 29 June 2007

Research has shown that exercise has a similar effect to antidepressants on depression. Now Astrid Bjørnebekk at Karolinska Institutet has found how this occurs: exercise stimulates the production of new brain cells.

In a series of studies, she searched for the underlying biological mechanisms to explain why exercise alleviates depression and then compared it to treatment with antidepressant drugs.

The experiments were conducted on 'Flinders Sensitive Line' rats which have a genetic susceptibility to depression. The results show that both exercise and antidepressants increase the formation of new cells in the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is important for memory, learning and emotion. Bjørnebekk's studies confirm previous research results, and she proposes a model to explain how exercise can have an antidepressant effect in mild to moderately severe depression. Her study also shows that exercise is a very good adjunct to medications.

"What is interesting is that the effect of antidepressant therapy can be greatly strengthened by external environmental factors," she says.

Previous studies have shown that drug abusers have lowered levels of the dopamine D2 receptor in the brain's reward system. It has been speculated that this may be of significance to the depressive symptoms drug abusers often suffer from. These rat studies show that genetic factors may influence how external environmental factors can regulate levels of the dopamine D2 receptor in the brain.

"Different individuals may have differing sensitivity to how stress lowers dopamine D2 receptor levels, for example. This might be significant in explaining why certain individuals develop depression more readily than others," she says.

More on exercise and anxiety/depression...

More on neurogenesis and anxiety/depression...


Bjørnebekk A. On antidepressant effects of running and SSRI : Focus on hippocampus and striatal dopamine pathways
Karolinska Institutet 2007 Jun 15.   [Abstract | Full text (PDF format)]

tags: clinical depression    neurogenesis  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit




1. Apnea accessories left...
Saturday, 30 June 2007 3:27 am :: http://med-dyne.com/

That is truly amazing! The mind and body connection just makes me in awe sometimes. One more reason exercise is worthwhile, huh? :)