MRS May Have Antidepressant Effect

Using high-speed echo planar magnetic resonance spectroscopic (EP-MRS) imaging has produced antidepressant effects in rats, validating similar observations made in humans, according to a new study.

These findings suggest that electromagnetic fields produced by this imaging method may alter brain biology, according to researchers at Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA, USA) and McLean Hospital (Belmont, MA, USA). They discovered the same effects in the laboratory rats as seen after administering conventional antidepressant drugs.

The investigators observed this effect after another group of researchers at McLean Hospital noted that EP-MRS have improved the moods of humans in the depressed stage of bipolar disorder. This new study, published in the March 15, 2005, issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry, was devised to see if this antidepressant reaction to this imaging modality worked in animal models similar to that observed in the humans with bipolar disorder.

When the rats were put through a series of tests to stress them, they developed helpless behavior, which may be their adaptation for despair, according to the investigators. In the study, the rats who had been imaged with EP-MRS demonstrated less helplessness during the stress testing, similar to the effects seen with antidepressant agents such as desipramine and fluoxetine.

While this may provide a new way to treat depressive disorders, the study also suggests that some kinds of MRI scanning are more invasive than previously believed. They suggest caution when high-speed MRI is utilized to detect or assess brain disorders. There are still effects from being exposed to electrical and magnetic fields from this kind of imaging that researchers do not yet totally understand.




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