The Chinese medication, Yueju pill may promote brain rewiring, serving as the key to personalized depression treatment.
A recent study demonstrates that brain imaging shows how patients respond to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Yueju Pill for major depressive disorder (MDD).
Currently, depression has become a growing worldwide challenge, and standard therapies often fail to achieve success due to lack of precision.
While both the medications, escitalopram and yueju pill were found to work well for treating MDD, Yueju Pill shows a unique effect on the biological mechanism of brain networks. Such discovery can contribute to individualized depression treatments in psychiatry(1✔ ✔Trusted Source
Brain network predictors of changes in symptoms and serum BDNF following antidepressant treatment with escitalopram and Yueju Pill in major depressive disorder: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study
Go to source
).
The study was published in General Psychiatry.
Predicting Treatment Success via Brain Network Patterns
This study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 28 outpatients with MDD from the Fourth People’s Hospital of Taizhou. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, the Yueju Pill group (which received Yueju Pill and a placebo for escitalopram), or the escitalopram group (which received escitalopram and a placebo for Yueju Pill).
Researchers collected data on depression symptoms, as measured via 24-item Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD-24) scores, peripheral blood samples and MRI brain scans.
Both groups showed improvement in their depression symptoms after treatment. However, only the Yueju Pill group showed a significant increase in serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)—a protein associated with brain health and mood regulation.
From the brain imaging results, researchers found that certain brain structure networks could predict changes in depression scores for both groups.
Cortical Patterns Guide Depression Treatment Selection
Interestingly, some specific brain network patterns—based on sulcus depth and cortical thickness—were only predictive in the Yueju Pill group. Further analysis showed that the visual network of the brain played an important role in predicting both changes in depression scores and BDNF levels for those taking Yueju Pill.
This study suggests that brain network patterns could help predict how well individual patients with MDD respond to Yueju Pill treatment. This finding may help clinical workers personalize antidepressant therapy in the future.
“The brain networks can then be fed to the predictive models constructed in this study to predict patients’ responses to Yueju Pill treatment,” explained Dr. Zhang, the study’s leading author. “Based on the predicted responses, we can then determine whether the patient is suitable for Yueju Pill treatment.”
Reference:
- Brain network predictors of changes in symptoms and serum BDNF following antidepressant treatment with escitalopram and Yueju Pill in major depressive disorder: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study – (https://gpsych.bmj.com/content/38/5/e102041)
Source-Eurekalert