Loading...
Research increasingly suggests that modifying N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) signaling (e.g., with ketamine; NEJM JW Psychiatry Sep 26 2013) can improve depression rapidly. These investigators from Taiwan studied animal and human antidepressant effects of the experimental drug sarcosine, which enhances NMDAR neurotransmission by inhibiting the glycine transporter-1 and reducing uptake inhibition of glycine, a co-agonist of the NMDAR. One researcher is a developer of sarcosine.
Rats were given sarcosine, desipramine, citalopram, or vehicle. On several measures of depression-like and anxiety-like behaviors, sarcosine had antidepressant-like actions similar to desipramine and somewhat similar to citalopram, compared with vehicle.
In a dou…