peripheral blood and neuropsychological markers for the onset of action of antidepressant drugs in patients with major depressive disorder外周血和神经心理标记出现重度抑郁症患者的抗抑郁药物的作用.pdf

Tadić et al. BMC Psychiatry 2011, 11:16 /1471-244X/11/16 STUDY PROTOCOL Open Access Peripheral blood and neuropsychological markers for the onset of action of antidepressant drugs in patients with Major Depressive Disorder 1† 1*† 2 1,3 1 4 André Tadić , Stefanie Wagner , Stanislav Gorbulev , Norbert Dahmen , Christoph Hiemke , Dieter F Braus , Klaus Lieb1 Abstract Background: In Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), treatment outcomes with currently available strategies are often disappointing. Therefore, it is sensible to develop new strategies to increase remission rates in acutely depressed patients. Many studies reported that true drug response can be observed within 14 days (early improvement) of antidepressant treatment. The identical time course of symptom amelioration after early improvement in patients treated with antidepressants of all classes or with placebo strongly suggests a common biological mechanism, which is not specific for a particular antidepressant medication. However, the biology underlying early improvement and final treatment response is not understood and there is no established biological marker as yet, which can predict treatment response for the individual patient before initiation or during the course of antidepressant treatment. Peripheral blood markers and executive functions are particularly promising candidates as markers for the onset of action and thus the prediction of final treatment outcome in MDD. Methods/Design: The present paper presents the rationales, objectives and methods of a multi-centre study applying close-meshed repetitive measurements of peripheral blood and neuropsychological parameters in patients with MDD and healthy cont