Leptin Receptors: New Players in Our Understanding of Antidepressant Medication Response

Clinicians are well aware that serotonin, catecholamines, and their receptors are important for antidepressant activity. Other less-studied transmitters and receptors — for example, the leptin receptor — may also have important functions in antidepressants' effects. Previous studies in mice have associated lower leptin levels with models of chronic stress and depression and have suggested that the long form of the leptin receptor (LepRb) is both necessary and sufficient for antidepressant action. Now, investigators have studied the effects of fluoxetine and desipramine when LepRb capacity was knocked out either generally or in specific brain areas in genetically modified mice.

Overall, the LepRb was necessary for the antidepressant actions o…