This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (36)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Depression  • Psychopharmacology  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Alexander Neumeister, MD; Nicole Praschak-Rieder, MD; Barbara Heßelmann, MD; Oliver Vitouch, MS; Manfred Rauh, MD; Arnd Barocka, MD; Johannes Tauscher, MD; Siegfried Kasper, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998;55:167-172.

Background  There is some evidence that sleep deprivation (SD) might exert its antidepressant properties by involving serotonergic mechanisms. We investigated the effects of short-term tryptophan depletion (TD) on depressed patients who responded to a single night of total SD.

Methods  Drug-free depressed inpatients (n=30) were randomly assigned to either TD or sham depletion. Tryptophan depletion was induced by a 24-hour low-tryptophan diet (day 1) followed the next morning by ingestion of a tryptophan-free amino acid mixture (day 2). During sham depletion, the diet and the amino acid beverage were supplemented with tryptophan. Sleep deprivation was performed from day 1 until day 2. Only SD responders received the amino acid beverage the morning after SD. Behavioral ratings and total and free plasma tryptophan levels were obtained before and after the test sessions.

Results  Twenty-two of 30 patients showed a favorable outcome after SD. As predicted, TD significantly lowered total and free plasma tryptophan levels, whereas both levels increased during sham depletion. No acute effects on mood were observed during the day after SD in either treatment group. Unexpectedly, TD, but not control testing, prevented the depressive relapse after the recovery night in most of the patients.

Conclusions  Tryptophan depletion did not reverse the antidepressant effects of SD, but it prevented the relapse beyond a night of recovery sleep. These findings suggest that SD does not act via a single monoamine-related mechanism, but they allow the assumption that TD may induce neurochemical alterations that transiently improve depression.

From the Department of General Psychiatry (Drs Neumeister, Praschak-Rieder, Heßelmann, Tauscher, and Kasper) and the Institute of Psychology (Mr Vitouch), Vienna University, and the Departments of Psychiatry (Dr Barocka) and Pediatrics (Dr Rauh), University of Erlangen, Vienna, Austria.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Behavioural effects of acute tryptophan depletion in healthy male volunteers
Shansis et al.
J Psychopharmacol 2000;14:157-163.
ABSTRACT  

Prediction of Antidepressant Effects of Sleep Deprivation by Metabolic Rates in the Ventral Anterior Cingulate and Medial Prefrontal Cortex
Wu et al.
Am. J. Psychiatry 1999;156:1149-1158.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT