Bioinformatics and Genomics News and Views » serotonin

Acute gastroenteritis in children

Jessica P. — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:09:03 +0000

Acute gastroenteritis affects numerous children at least one time in their infancy and childhood. This disease is usually due to viral infection and none treatment is suggested to treat the infection self. In contrast, more concerns are due to dehydration associated with vomiting and diarrhoea.
Dehydration is treated with oral or intravenous intake of fluid, but generally intravenous treatment is preferred because the high likelihood of emesis may reduce benefits. Anti- emetic drugs are not suggested for children for their important adverse effects. Anyway, several studies have been reported in literature that show the effectiveness of ondansetron, an antagonist of serotonin receptor. This drug has been initially developed to treat nausea following chemotherapy in cancer patients; up to date ondansetron seems also promising to care emesis in children during acute gastroenteritis. The major benefit is the reduction of vomiting episodes that make possible to use also oral rehydration treatment. Furthermore, duration of hospital staying or admission rate are also reduced after ondansetron treatment, showing a financial advantage in comparison to traditional approaches. In conclusion, these studies are very important to demonstrate and ascertain the effectiveness of drugs in children in well structured trials. It’s auspicial that other drugs will be analysed at the same manner.

A novel antidepressant therapy

Jessica P. — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:35:44 +0000

Current antidepressants usually marketed compensate the low level of serotonin, the main cause of depression, anxiety and mood problems. These compounds selectively block the re-uptake of neurotransmitter into the synaptic space. Serotonin still longer available for the interaction with its receptors located onto the plasma membrane of post synaptic neurons. Unfortunately, clinical studies reported an high variability in the response and some patients acquired resistance after few months of treatment. Furthermore, clinical efficacy has a lag of two or three weeks after starting the therapy, before obtaining significant benefit for patients.
Scientists for the Columbia University demonstrated that a possible responsible of the resistance is an auto-receptor for serotonin located onto the membrane of pre synaptic neurons that regulates serotonin release with negative feedback. Mouse carrying lower level of this receptor than normal mouse showed higher tolerance to environmental stress and other stimuli and a better response to traditional inhibitors. In human, high level of auto- receptor causes low reactivity of amygdale, a brain portion crucial to overcome stress and difficult situations. Inhibitors of this serotonin auto-receptor will be a novel drug useful to treat resistant forms of depression and anxiety or to improve activity of current antidepressant compounds.