Brexanolone for postpartum depression
3 min readAug 17, 2023
Another take by Psychopharmacology Institute.
- Brexanolone is a synthetic form of allopregnagolone, a GABA modulating neurosteroid
- The study had 216 participants, all women 18–45 with de novo MDD in their third trimester or within the first 4 weeks following delivery
- The drug was administered via a 60-hour injection (despite a half-life of roughly 9 hours)
- The cumulative response rate of 81.4% in BRX versus 61.7% in PLA groups
- All the other outcomes
p<0.05better in BRX group - The cost of such an injection is ~$34,000 before insurance and deductions (like WTF man)
- BRX can apparently cross BBB when administered intranasally, however, a lot is lost (16,000 ng/mg in the olfactory bulb 670 ng/mg in the brain). The authors used cyclodextrin sulfobutylether — cyclodextrin to enhance the transport
- More on BRX
Finally, generative agents!
The long-awaited agent simulations of human behavior…tadaa…the ones that use Time-Weighted Vector Retriever. By the way, here it is.
And here’s a demo which I’ve linked not once and not twice IIRC.
Alzheimer’s and gut
- Some of the gut bacteria were found to be more prevalent in both AD patients and, in the present study, in the so-called preclinical stage
- One of those are Faecalibacterium prausnitzii
- A strange one as those are one of the main butyrate producers
- Turns out it actually has a possible link to immune system activation, being increased in RA patients and decreased in Sjogren’s Syndrome and Systemic Sclerosis.
- The weird thing, yeah — F.S. is less abundant in AD than in healthy controls:
- Still, the authors tell us that in preclinical AD, FP is more abundant (the things you do without institutional access). 👀🧐🔎
- Obviously, it’s detected more often; but is it more abundant on the average, and does this make real sense concerning its effects?
I wouldn’t run to conclusions and causal inference here. It may well be a correlation, or an adaptive change (say, as oxidative damage increases SOD/CAT/GPx expression, tau accumulation may slightly increase the butyrate producers, or some enzymes may produce more food for that phyla, etc.)
Tribalism
Just a wild thought:
May the cancel culture be rooted in the solitude everyone is experiencing (actually, not)? Maybe that’s more in line with interconnectedness exuberance and being fast to react?
