A Randomized Controlled Trial of Intranasal Neuropeptide Y in Patients With Major Depressive Disorder

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Neuropeptide Y, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Since about one-third of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) do not respond adequately to available antidepressants, there is a need for treatments based on novel mechanisms of action.

Moreover, NPY administered centrally or intranasally rescues pathophysiology in these models.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Neuropeptide Y and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Neuropeptide Y, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Neuropeptide Y, giving a reference point.

Effects were assessed at baseline, +1 hour, +5 hours, +24 hours, and +48 hours.

The primary outcome was change in depression severity measured with the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS).

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Antidepressive Agents, Major Depressive Disorder, Neuropeptide Y and Outcome Assessment, Health Care.

Author keywords: Depression, antidepressant, intranasal and resilience.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Neuropeptide Y.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2020 (The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Neuropeptide Y compound page, all human trials.