LITHIUM has been used to treat manic depression for nearly 50 years. Now
researchers have figured out how it works.
In the US and Europe, one person in 1000 takes lithium to alleviate the mood
swings of manic depression. To find out what it does, a team led by De-Maw
Chuang at the National Institutes of 91色情片 in Bethesda, Maryland, cultured
neurons from a rat鈥檚 cerebellum. Doses of lithium similar to those given to
patients reduced the cells鈥� response to glutamate, a neurotransmitter which is
overactive in neural diseases such as Parkinson鈥檚.
Chuang says further research on the glutamate pathway could yield more
effective treatments for mania and depression (Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, vol 95, p 2642).
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