|  | Conditions Treatments | Depression

HPA Treatment for Atypical Depression

For millions of people, depression is a long-standing menace to their lives. There are at least a dozen different kinds of depression, with dozens of different subtypes of each having been classified as well. Treatment for any classification of depression has come a long way since the early use of psychiatric medicines, and is very important to the quality of life for sufferers. A number of different treatment options exist, allowing doctors to customize treatment based on the individual in order to find the treatment option that works best for them.

  1. Atypical Depression

    • Atypical depression is the most common type of depression. The DSM-IV, a manual for classifying mental disorders, requires that a person be classified as "depressed" if the person has a problem with comfort eating, oversleeping, feeling heavy or leaden, and having feelings of being rejected often in interpersonal relationships. Atypical depression is a subtype of major depressive disorder, a disorder in which the person may have frequent episodes of severe depression lasting two weeks or more. What makes atypical depression the most common subtype of MDD is that people who have it can feel happy after--or look forward to--happy events.

    The HPA System

    • The HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) system is an endocrine network in the brain which maintains stress-related homeostasis, the process in the body that regulates the stability of such systems. The majority of individuals with depression have chemical levels in their brain that are imbalanced, and doctors are able to treat the depression by using methods which alter the HPA system in order to stabilize those chemicals.

    MAOI

    • MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) were some of the first antidepressants. They are fairly effective, but doctors tend to use them as a last resort because they have potentially lethal drug interactions with other medications and with some foods. They are particularly effective in the treatment of atypical depression, however, and may find a wider use in the treatment of this specific classification of depression than other classifications. Examples of MAOIs include the drugs Neuralex, Drazine, Cantor and Deprenyl.

    Tricyclic Antidepressants

    • Another class of drugs, tricyclic antidepressants have been widely out of use due to newer classes of drugs that are generally considered to be more effective. They are still used to treat certain disorders, however, with major depressive disorder being one of the most common usages. Examples of tricyclics include Elavil, Vivactil, Insidon and Prondol.

    SSRI Antidepressants

    • Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, better known as SSRIs, were the most widely used variety of antidepressants at the turn of the twenty-first century. Serotonin is the brain's "feel-good" hormone, causing feelings of euphoria and combating depression naturally. SSRIs inhibit the reuptake of the serotonin, meaning that more serotonin remains in the brain than would normally be present in order to help prevent depressive symptoms from developing. Several sub-classes of inhibitors drugs exist as well, and can be used in conjunction with SSRIs to reduce the reuptake of several other hormones in the brain such as dopamine, norepinephrine and noradrenaline. Common SSRIs include Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac and Lexapro.

Depression - Related Articles