HealthDay - Possible Reason for Rimonabant's Side Effects Discovered
The weight-loss drug rimonabant has been associated with troubling psychiatric side effects, and now researchers think they have discovered why.
A receptor in the brain called TRPV1, which is central to learning and memory, may be blocked by large doses of rimonabant (Acomplia), resulting in depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts among some people taking the drug, a new study shows.
“We think that changes in the strength of connections between neurons in the brain underlie all kinds of important changes in the brain like learning, the development of the nervous system and many other adaptations to the environment, such as responses to pain and responses to drugs,” said lead researcher Julie Kauer, an associate professor of molecular pharmacology, physiology and biotechnology at Brown University in Rhode Island.
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The report was published in the March 13 issue of Neuron .
In experiments with rat brains, Kauer’s group found that TRPV1 controls …
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