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Journal of Psychopharmacology
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0269881106067330v1
21/4/414    most recent
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Article

The resistance to depressive relapse in menopausal women undergoing tryptophan depletion: preliminary findings

C. Neill Epperson1*, Zenab Amin2, Frederick Naftolin3, Angela Cappiello2, Kathyryn Czarkowski2, Stephanie Stiklus2, George M. Anderson4, John Krystal2

1 Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
2 Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
3 Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
4 Yale University Child Study Center, New Haven, CT, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.


  Abstract

Changes in neuroendocrine function may predispose menopausal women to psychological disturbances characterized by depressed mood, anxiety, irritability, fatigue, insomnia, forgetfulness and decline in libido. The acute tryptophan depletion paradigm was employed to examine the serotonergic contribution to mood and cognitive function in menopausal women who were within 4 weeks of recovery from an episode of major depression. Menopausal women whose depression was responsive to treatment with oestradiol, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluoxetine, or a combination of both treatments underwent assessment of mood and verbal memory on active tryptophan depletion and sham depletion test days. Although performance on the delayed paragraph recall subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale was impaired by tryptophan depletion, no subjects experienced a relapse of depression or a significant worsening of mood. Results from this pilot study indicate that menopausal women who have recently recovered from a major depressive episode do not experience a worsening of mood with acute tryptophan depletion, despite the existence in this sample of some known risk factors for depressive relapse as a result of these procedures. While preliminary, the results suggest that serotonin may be less critical to the pathogenesis of depression during the menopause.

Key Words: serotonin, menopause, depression, tryptophan depletion

First published on August 4, 2006, doi:10.1177/0269881106067330

Journal of Psychopharmacology 2007;21:414.

A more recent version of this article appeared on June 1, 2007

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