Using Scopolamine to Test a Biomarker of Depression — and Scopolamine Response

Cholinergic overdrive might have a role in some depressions and in the bias in depressed people to preferentially remember negatively charged information. These investigators studied the correlation of brain activity in the middle occipital cortex during visual working memory (which is driven in part by muscarinic cholinergic neurotransmission) and an antidepressant response to the anticholinergic drug scopolamine. Some authors and the funder National Institute of Mental Health are involved in related patents.

After a single-blind placebo infusion, 14 patients with recurrent major depression and 21 healthy controls underwent two double-blind series of infusions (3 each of 4 µg/kg scopolamine and placebo, in random order); infusions occurred …