PLASMA GABA AND MOOD DISORDERS

在过去的三年里，我们研究了正常对照组的血浆GABA， 情绪障碍的患者。 我们的研究结果表明，血浆 GABA水平在对照组和患者中均随时间稳定， 受季节、一天中的时间、性别、年龄、月经状况、饮食、 胆碱能激发或轻度运动。 脑梗死患者血浆γ-氨基丁酸的变化 原发性单相抑郁显著低于对照组， 特别是在一个亚组（40%）的患者中。 这些发现表明 血浆GABA可能具有稳定的性状样标记物的某些特征。 这一假设将在下面的两个提案中得到检验。 实验 首先，一些病人在缓解药物将 研究以确定是否在其中一些人中看到的低血浆GABA， 虽然有症状，但随着时间的推移恢复正常。 第二，兄弟姐妹 将对低GABA患者进行研究，以调查是否存在 低血浆GABA与心境障碍的家族关联 这些实验应该提供更多的数据， 血浆GABA在抑郁症中的亚群及是否存在低GABA的患者 都有不同的临床特征 拟议的工作应进一步促进我们的 了解精神疾病的生物化学。

For the last three years we have studied plasma GABA in normal controls and in patients with mood disorders. Our findings to date suggest that plasma GABA levels are stable over time in both controls and patients, and not affected by season, time of day, gender, age, menstrual status, diet, cholinergic challenge, or mild exercise. Plasma GABA in patients with primary unipolar depression are significantly lower than in control, particularly in a subset (40%) of patients. These findings suggest that plasma GABA may have some characteristics of a stable trait-like marker. This hypothesis will be tested in the following proposal in two experiments. First, a number of patients in remission off medication will be studied to determine whether the low plasma GABA seen in some of them, while symptomatic, reverts to normal with time. Second, siblings of patients with low GABA will be studied to investigate whether there is a familial association between low plasma GABA and mood disorder. These experiments should provide additional data regarding the role of plasma GABA in depression, and whether the subset of patients with low GABA share distinct clinical features. The work proposed should further our understanding of the biochemistry of mental illness.