Trial reportPsychopharmacology2009
Effects of erythropoietin on emotional processing biases in patients with major depression: an exploratory fMRI study.
Trial report in Psychopharmacology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Methodological recommendations for cognition trials in bipolar disorder by the International Society for Bipolar Disorders Targeting Cognition Task Force.Bipolar disorders · 2017Guideline
- Citalopram versus other anti-depressive agents for depression.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2012Pooled it
- Prophylactic effect of erythropoietin injection to prevent acute mountain sickness: an open-label randomized controlled trial.Journal of Korean medical science · 2014Trial
- Baseline mood-state measures as predictors of antidepressant response to scopolamine.Psychiatry research · 2012Trial
- Effects of erythropoietin on depressive symptoms and neurocognitive deficits in depression and bipolar disorder.Trials · 2010Trial
- Acute carbamoylated erythropoietin reduces social stress-induced anxiety and depression-related behaviors.Neuropharmacology · 2025Article
- Epoetin alfa has a potent anxiolytic effect on naive female rats.BMC pharmacology & toxicology · 2025Article
- Article
- Behavioral Activation and Brain Network Changes in Depression.Journal of clinical neurology (Seoul, Korea) · 2024Review
- Association of Endogenous Erythropoietin Levels and Iron Status With Cognitive Functioning in the General Population.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Article
- Lack of association between erythropoietin treatment and risk of depression in patients with end-stage kidney disease on maintenance dialysis: a nationwide database study in Taiwan.Therapeutic advances in chronic disease · 2021Article
- Current Evidence on the Protective Effects of Recombinant Human Erythropoietin and Its Molecular Variants against Pathological Hallmarks of Alzheimer's Disease.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Article
- Article
- Concordance of Several Subcellular Interactions Initiates Alzheimer's Dementia: Their Reversal Requires Combination Treatment.American journal of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias · 2017Review
- Erythropoietin Pathway: A Potential Target for the Treatment of Depression.International journal of molecular sciences · 2016Review
- A neurocognitive model for understanding treatment action in depression.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Review
- Identification of genes and gene pathways associated with major depressive disorder by integrative brain analysis of rat and human prefrontal cortex transcriptomes.Translational psychiatry · 2015Article
- Synthesis of a FTO inhibitor with anticonvulsant activity.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2014Article
- Neuroplasticity and the next wave of antidepressant strategies.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2013Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionErythropoietin (Epo) has neurotrophic effects and may be a novel therapeutic agent in the treatment of depression. We have found antidepressant-like effects of Epo on emotional processing and mood in healthy volunteers.
objectiveThe current study aimed to explore the effects of Epo on the neural processing of emotional information in depressed patients. MATERIALS AND
methodsSeventeen patients with acute major depressive disorder were randomised to receive Epo (40,000 IU) or saline iv in a double-blind, parallel-group design. On day 3, we assessed neural responses to positive, negative and neutral pictures during fMRI followed by picture recall after the scan. Mood and blood parameters were assessed at baseline and on day 3.
resultsEpo reduced neural response to negative vs. positive pictures 3 days post-administration in a network of areas including the hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal and parietal cortex. After the scan, Epo-treated patients showed improved memory compared with those that were given placebo. The effects occurred in the absence of changes in mood or haematological parameters, suggesting that they originated from direct neurobiological actions of Epo.
conclusionsThese findings are similar to the effects of conventional antidepressants and opposite to the negative biases in depression. The central effects of Epo therefore deserve further investigation as a potential antidepressant mechanism.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.