Depression Treatment: Association Between Reported Venlafaxine Use in Early Pregnancy and Birth Defects, National Birth Defects Prevention Study, 1997-2007.
Association between reported venlafaxine use in early pregnancy and birth defects, national birth defects prevention study, 1997-2007.
Filed under: Depression Treatment
Birth Defects Res A Clin Mol Teratol. 2012 Dec 26;
Polen KN, Rasmussen SA, Riehle-Colarusso T, Reefhuis J,
BACKGROUND: Few epidemiologic studies have investigated the use of venlafaxine (Effexor XR capsules, Product Monograph, Wyeth, Montreal, Canada), an antidepressant used to treat major depression and anxiety disorders in adults, during pregnancy. Our objective was to determine whether use of venlafaxine during pregnancy is associated with specific birth defects. METHODS: We used data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS), a population-based, case-control study in the United States. Our analysis included mothers with pregnancies affected by one of 30 selected birth defects (cases) and babies without birth defects (controls) with estimated dates of delivery between 1997 and 2007. Exposure was any reported use of venlafaxine from 1 month preconception through the third month of pregnancy. We calculated adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% Fisher Exact confidence intervals (CIs) for 24 birth defect groups for which at least 400 case mothers were interviewed. Our adjusted analyses controlled for maternal age and race/ethnicity. RESULTS: Among the 27,045 NBDPS participants who met inclusion criteria, 0.17% (14/8002) of control mothers and 0.40% (77/19,043) of case mothers reported any use of venlafaxine from 1 month preconception through the third month of pregnancy. Statistically significant associations were found for anencephaly, atrial septal defect (ASD) secundum, or ASD not otherwise specified, coarctation of the aorta, cleft palate, and gastroschisis. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest associations between periconceptional use of venlafaxine and some birth defects. However, sample sizes were small, CIs were wide, and additional studies are needed to confirm these results. Birth Defects Research (Part A), 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
HubMed – depression
Acute tryptophan depletion promotes an anterior-to-posterior fMRI activation shift during task switching in older adults.
Filed under: Depression Treatment
Hum Brain Mapp. 2012 Dec 20;
Lamar M, Craig M, Daly EM, Cutter WJ, Tang C, Brammer M, Rubia K, Murphy DG
Studies have long reported that aging is associated with declines in several functions modulated by the prefrontal cortex, including executive functions like working memory, set shifting, and inhibitory control. The neurochemical basis to this is poorly understood, but may include the serotonergic system. We investigated the modulatory effect of serotonin using acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) during a cognitive switching task involving visual-spatial set shifting modified for a functional MRI environment. Ten healthy women over 55 years were tested on two separate occasions in this within-group double-blind sham-controlled crossover study to compare behavioral and physiological brain functioning following ATD and following a (“placebo”) sham depletion condition. ATD did not significantly affect task performance. It did modulate brain functional recruitment. During sham depletion women significantly activated the expected task-relevant brain regions associated with the Switch task including prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices. In contrast, following ATD participants activated posterior regions of brain more during switch than repeat trials. In addition to the main effects of depletion condition, a comparison of the ATD relative to the sham condition confirmed this anterior-to-posterior shift in activation. The posterior (increased) activation clusters significantly and negatively correlated with the reduced prefrontal activation clusters suggesting a compensation mechanism for reduced prefrontal activation during ATD. Thus, serotonin modulates an anterior-to-posterior shift of activation during cognitive switching in older adults. Neural adaptation to serotonin challenge during cognitive control may prove useful in determining cognitive vulnerability in older adults with a predisposition for serontonergic down-regulation (e.g., in vascular or late life depression). Hum Brain Mapp, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
HubMed – depression
PATTERNS OF LIFETIME PTSD COMORBIDITY: A LATENT CLASS ANALYSIS.
Filed under: Depression Treatment
Depress Anxiety. 2012 Dec 28;
Galatzer-Levy IR, Nickerson A, Litz BT, Marmar CR
BACKGROUND: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with high rates of psychiatric comorbidity, most notably substance use disorders, major depression, and other anxiety disorders. However, little is known about how these disorders cluster together among people with PTSD, if disorder clusters have distinct etiologies in terms of trauma type, and if they confer greater burden over and above PTSD alone. METHOD: Utilizing Latent Class Analysis, we tested for discrete patterns of lifetime comorbidity with PTSD following trauma exposure (n = 409). Diagnoses were based on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). Next, we examined if gender, trauma type, symptom frequency, severity, and interference with everyday life were associated with the latent classes. RESULTS: Three patterns of lifetime comorbidity with PTSD emerged: a class characterized by predominantly comorbid mood and anxiety disorders; a class characterized by predominantly comorbid mood, anxiety, and substance dependence; and a relatively pure low-comorbidity PTSD class. Individuals in both high comorbid classes had nearly two and a half times the rates of suicidal ideation, endorsed more PTSD symptom severity, and demonstrated a greater likelihood of intimate partner abuse compared to the low comorbidity class. Men were most likely to fall into the substance dependent class. CONCLUSION: PTSD comorbidity clusters into a small number of common patterns. These patterns may represent an important area of study, as they confer distinct differences in risk and possibly etiology. Implications for research and treatment are discussed.
HubMed – depression
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