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VIDEO: Studies explore how antidepressants, placebo effect the brain

NEW YORK — David Hellerstein, MD, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and Healio Psychiatry Peer Perspective Board member, discussed posters presented here on clinical trials that explored how brain connections changed with antidepressant treatment vs. placebo in patients with and without chronic depression.

In double-blind clinical trials, researchers examined the effects of antidepressant medication for chronic depression using MRI imaging before the patients started medication or placebo and after 10 weeks on medication or placebo. They discovered how the brain connections changed with treatment and how these connections differed in patients with chronic depression compared with those without. What was notable, Hellerstein said, was to see what findings presented in one study were replicated in the other.

Disclosures: Hellerstein reports grants/research funding from Eli Lilly and Company, Marinus Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer and Takeda Pharmaceuticals.