Laughing gas shows promise for treating depression

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Recent research has shown that inhaling a low dose of nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, improves the condition of people with depression over the next two weeks.

Treating depression with nitrous oxide

While it has long been established that this common anesthetic (the use of which is also diverted for recreational purposes) can temporarily improve mood and relieve pain, it was until now believed that the effect wears off quickly. The laughing gas seems to mainly affect the brain by blocking molecules in nerve cells called receptors N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA). Either the same receptors as those targeted by the ketamine, a powerful anesthetic that also relieves depression.

Although the process by which the receptors NMDA change the mood remains obscure today, the demonstration of the antidepressant effects of ketamine had pushed Peter Nagele and his colleagues from the Washington University School of Medicine to look at nitrous oxide, had to determine if the latter had a similar potential.

In 2014, his team found that a 60-minute nitrous oxide inhalation session reduced depressive symptoms for up to 24 hours in subjects for whom conventional antidepressant treatments had proved ineffective.

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As part of this new work presented in the journal Science Translational Medicine, US researchers looked at 24 people with drug-resistant depression. Prolonged use of nitrous oxide can cause various side effects, these were given a half dose of nitrous oxide, a full dose or a placebo mixture of air and oxygen, at the rate of ‘one session per month for three months.

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Significant effects

After two weeks, the depression symptoms of those who received the half-dose were on average reduced by five points compared to those who received the placebo mixture, on a scale commonly used to assess this disorder. Which was a significant benefit.

After the full-dose treatment, the researchers noted a slightly more marked reduction in depressive symptoms, but the difference was so small that it might as well have been due to chance. The half-dose group also had a much lower incidence of nausea, headache and dizziness.

« Like ketamine, nitrous oxide has the advantage of rapidly improving mood “, Explain Nagele. « Something like flipping a switch happens in the brain, but how exactly it works remains a mystery to this day.. »

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