TechTheDay

It comes as no surprise that human understanding is still very limited when it comes to the brain. There’s still so much we don’t know about the brain’s various processes, making it extremely tricky to deal with anxiety and depression. In addition, it feels like every time a breakthrough is made, many more problems present themselves—slowing things down.

Funny enough, that’s similar to what glycine, an amino acid, can do to the brain. Glycine can send signals to the brain that can effectively slow things down. This slow-down signal is surmised to contribute to mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, and it could lead to a better way of treating these issues.

This recent discovery, made by the Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology, shows glycine’s potential to contribute to depression and anxiety. The author, neuroscientist Kirill Martemyanov, Ph.D., believes this discovery will eventually lead to faster-acting medication.

The trouble with treating depression

One of the primary issues in treating depression—aside from the general lack of understanding—is how slow-acting many of the treatments can be. People need treatment right away, but the medication can take weeks to kick in. As such, many researchers are looking for ways to understand anxiety and depression. They’re not necessarily looking for a cure as such a thing isn’t feasible at this point in time. Instead, what the researchers are doing is looking for context clues that might help them better understand these mental disorders, which in turn allows them to potentially make improvements based on the data.

It comes as no surprise that depression is one of the most troubling conditions one can have, and it’s an urgent health need no matter where you go. Depression contributes to suicide, and those numbers have gone up in recent years, especially due to the recent pandemic. As a result, more and more people are falling victim to depression, which is why scientists and researchers are hard at work looking for new ways to treat this seemingly impossible condition.

An understanding of glycine

Currently, glycine is described as an amino acid capable of improving one’s mood, and it’s even being billed as a nutritional supplement. The fact of the matter is people still know too little about what these amino acids are truly capable of, which is why researchers are hard at work to fully understand this seemingly basic building block of cells.

Balance is a huge part of mental health, and the body’s ability to maintain balance will determine whether people can function normally in society or if they start suffering from various physical and mental health conditions. Martemyanov continues to study the effects of glycine and its potential as a contributing factor to various mental disorders.

There’s no denying that, as far as treatment goes, depression is still far too challenging to manage. New treatments are desperately needed, and this discovery could prove to be a key player in how anxiety and depression are treated in the near future.