Having a few drinks may help people with clinical depression feel better, say scientists who have found that alcohol produces same neural changes as rapidly effective antidepressants.
"Because of the high comorbidity between major depressive disorder and alcoholism there is the widely recognised self-medication hypothesis, suggesting that depressed individuals may turn to drinking as a means to treat their depression," said Kimberly Raab-Graham, associate professor at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in the US.
"We now have biochemical and behavioural data to support that hypothesis," she said.
However, this does not suggest that alcohol can be an effective treatment for depression, researchers said.
"There is definitely a danger in self-medicating with alcohol. There is a very fine line between it being helpful and harmful, and at some point during repeated use self-medication turns into addiction," Raab-Graham added.
Using an animal model, researchers found that a single dose of an intoxicating level of alcohol, which has been shown to block NMDA receptors - proteins associated with learning and memory - worked in conjunction with the autism-related protein FMRP to transform an acid called GABA from an inhibitor to a stimulator of neural activity.
In addition, they found that these biochemical changes resulted in non-depressive behaviour lasting at least 24 hours.
This study demonstrated that alcohol followed the same biochemical pathway as rapid antidepressants in the animals, while producing behavioural effects comparable to those observed in people.
In recent years, single doses of rapid antidepressants such as Ketamine have proven capable of relieving depressive symptoms within hours and lasting for up to two weeks, even in individuals who are resistant to traditional antidepressants.
The study appears in the journal Nature Communications.
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