How could a pill make you stronger mentally?

Would you believe if someone told you that a simple pill could strengthen you mentally, reducing stress and fighting anxiety at almost the same time? Of course, there are drugs that do this, especially those prescribed by psychiatrists, but they have no immediate effect.

According to a study led by professors Dennis Charney (Mount Sinai Medical School) and Steven Southwick (Yale University), a neuropeptide Y-based substance (NPY) is being tested and promises to make people better subjected to pressure, especially those suffering from depression.

Living under continuous stress

The survey was conducted at Mackall Camp, a "survival school" for soldiers in North Carolina. There, the combatants participate in endurance and escape tests, evasion, war imprisonment simulation, with concrete slabs, barbed wire and fake tombs.

The "prisoners" are subjected to mock interrogations that cause intense and uncontrolled nervousness in these men, according to the teachers. So this camp was their place of choice as the ideal setting for an acute stress study of the human body before and after training and questioning.

They were allowed to expose regular and special group soldiers to tests that proved that those with more NPY performed better during interrogation, just as special forces soldiers had significantly higher levels compared to regular troops.

After all, what is neuropeptide Y?

Neuropeptide Y (or NPY) is a brain chemical that is strongly correlated with people's ability to cope with depression or anxiety, for example. It is triggered by stress and helps reduce the release of norepinephrine hormone, which plays a crucial role in the fight or flight response.

This means that the more NPY your brain releases, the faster you recover from stress and become more resistant to these psychic problems. And that's what researchers are betting on: a substance that can increase the level of immediate neuropeptide for a person's recovery.

Genetic work suggests that people who have a form of gene that produces less NPY are more prone to anxiety. "Variations of neuropeptides, then, seem to be quite important for understanding the resilience neurobiology, " says Charney in light of his research.

How was the research done?

Charney, Southwick and their colleagues created a nasal spray that was applied and tested on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder in a single dose, but as it had never been done before, the dose was too low and they did not get very effective results. .

So in 2013, research was done on rats at a much higher dose than that applied to people. Seven days after receiving an amount of NPY, the animals showed significantly less signs of depression and anxiety than mice that were not treated with the substance.

The US Food and Drug Administration has now approved that Charney's proposal could be tested at higher doses in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder. This research is taking place and, according to the teachers, the results will come out until the second semester of 2015.