The association of CREB-phosphorylation and treatment-response in depression: Findings in pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment

Abstract

The cyclic AMP-response element binding protein (CREB) is an essential element in signal transduction pathways important for cellular resilience, synaptic plasticity and memory storage. We have previously demonstrated that the increase in CREB phosphorylation in peripheral blood T-lymphocytes is significantly associated with clinical improvement in patients treated with antidepressants (Koch et al. 2003). Furthermore we could demonstrate in a recently completed study that treatment-response in depressed patients treated exclusively with psychotherapy (IPT) is also associated with an increase in CREB-phosphorylation early in the course of treatment. In two ongoing studies we now investigate patients treated with ECT (n=20) or sleep-deprivation (n=10). Preliminary results of these patients are indicating that also under treatments with very different action mechanisms the response is associated with an increase in CREB-phosphorylation This suggests that the increase in CREB-phosphorylation might be useful as a predictor for treatment-response regardless of the kind of therapy applied.