PSYC 462 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Prefrontal Cortex, Valproate, Prolactin
Document Summary
Psyc 462 lecture 19: antidepressants and mood stabilizers (ii) This upregulation of receptors is still unfortunately insufficient to compensate for the reduced transmission: chronic antidepressant treatment downregulates 5-ht2 receptors in animal and human studies. 5-ht2 receptors are postsynaptic receptors: prolactin release is increased by 5-ht receptor agonist. In the process of developing triple-monoamine uptake blockade like cocaine but needs to mitigate addictive tendency. Brain regions involved in depressive disorder: greater activation in amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex where there are hyperactivity, amygdala associated with fear and anxious response where there is evidence of increased activity in bold response in fmri imaging. Ventral medial prefrontal cortex is involved in calming influence over amygdala that regulates how much of an emotional response to occur: when given antidepressants, dysfunction in these 2 regions is reduced. These regions have much noradrenergic and serotonergic input: there is shown to be more dysfunction in the left hemisphere in humans but not so in animal subjects.
