Laughing gas has recently proved effective treatment for serious depression. A team led by the Austrian doctor Peter Nagele has now informed the mechanism of action of the anesthetic at a molecular level using a mouse model.
Nitrogen oxide or stabic monoxide (N2O), better known as the names of laughing gas, has been used for anesthetic and pain relief for about 180 years. The Austrian doctor Peter Nagele from the University of Chicago (US) has been dealing with the antidepressant effect of the anesthesia for years. As early as 2021, he and his team showed that the symptoms of severe depression after an inhalation session of one hour laughed by 25 percent, improved more than two weeks.
15 percent do not respond to standard antidepressants
About 15 percent of people who suffer from depression do not start treatment with standard antidepressants-the effect often only starts after weeks. Here treatment with laughing gas can be an effective option. Because, according to Nagele, the effect of laughing gas often grabs faster than the conventional antidepressants.
Until now, the assumption that nitrogen gas would block certain receptors that are located in most brain cells. From the point of view of the scientists, it would have been unclear how laughing gas could achieve a “fast and permanent therapeutic effect”, because it would disappear from the brain again in “about five minutes” and not form no subsequent products.
Neurons “Awaken” in laughter of gas intake
The Nagele team tested laughing gas on mice that were exposed to chronic stress to simulate depression. After an hour of gas supply, a group of brain cells in the front cortex woke up, an area of the cerebral cortex. These layer 5 neurons (L5) play a role in regulating emotions and behavior. “With stress -related depression, these neurons are usually not very active,” Nagele explains.
Laughing gas switches switch
From the results of these tests, the researchers conclude that the smiling gas blocks certain potassium channels in these cells, so that they take action and “wake up” brain cells over time. While most anesthetics calm down the brain and quickly reduce its effect, “laughs gases a switch and these cells start to fire like crazy,” says Nagele. This activity also continues when the gas has disappeared, which was “a big surprise” for the research team.
Source: Krone
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