Trial reportNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2014
Recombinant human erythropoietin for treating treatment-resistant depression: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase 2 trial.
Trial report in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
45 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 104 citations in OpenAlex.
- Change in Cognitive Function over the Course of Major Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of pretreatment interhemispheric hippocampal asymmetry on improvement in verbal learning following erythropoietin treatment in mood disorders: a randomized controlled trialJournal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Transcriptional dynamics of the oligodendrocyte lineage and its regulation by the brain erythropoietin system.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Long-Term Cognitive Outcomes of Esketamine Nasal Spray in Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Preliminary Report.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- Erythropoietin restrains the inhibitory potential of interneurons in the mouse hippocampus.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Serum Erythropoietin and Ischemic-Modified Albumin Levels in Adolescents with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.Journal of molecular neuroscience : MN · 2024Article
- A novel dual serotonin transporter and M-channel inhibitor D01 for antidepression and cognitive improvement.Acta pharmaceutica Sinica. B · 2024Article
- Synergism of Carbamoylated Erythropoietin and Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 in Immediate Early Gene Expression.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Carbamoylated Erythropoietin-Induced Cerebral Blood Perfusion and Vascular Gene Regulation.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Erythropoietin and Erythropoietin Receptor Levels and Their Diagnostic Values in Drug-naïve Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.Clinical psychopharmacology and neuroscience : the official scientific journal of the Korean College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Pharmacological targeting of cognitive impairment in depression: recent developments and challenges in human clinical research.Translational psychiatry · 2022Review
- Introducing the brain erythropoietin circle to explain adaptive brain hardware upgrade and improved performance.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Review
- Nonerythropoietic Erythropoietin Mimetic Peptide ARA290 Ameliorates Chronic Stress-Induced Depression-Like Behavior and Inflammation in Mice.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Article
- Hot and cold cognitive disturbances in antidepressant-free patients with major depressive disorder: a NeuroPharm study.Psychological medicine · 2021Article
- Addressing the 'hypoxia paradox' in severe COVID-19: literature review and report of four cases treated with erythropoietin analogues.Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2021Review
- Effect of erythropoietin administration on the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, stromal cell-derived Factor-1, and neuron-specific enolase in traumatic brain injury: A literature review.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2021Review
- Hippocampal neurons respond to brain activity with functional hypoxia.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- A Comparative Analysis of Erythropoietin and Carbamoylated Erythropoietin Proteome Profiles.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Pharmacological treatments for depression have insufficient efficacy in 30-40% of patients and fail to reverse cognitive deficits. Erythropoietin (EPO) has neurotrophic actions and aids neurocognitive function. The aim of this exploratory study was to determine whether recombinant human EPO improves mood and memory in treatment-resistant depression. Forty treatment-resistant depressed unipolar patients with Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-17 (HDRS-17) score ≥ 17 were randomized to eight weekly EPO (Eprex; 40,000 IU) or saline infusions in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group design. Patients were assessed at baseline and at weeks 5, 9, and 14. Primary outcome was reduction in HDRS-17 score. Global assessment of function (GAF) was reported in addition. Secondary outcome was remission rate, and tertiary outcomes were changes in Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), Beck Depression Inventory-21 (BDI-21), and World Health Organization Quality of life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF). Exploratory outcomes were depression and cognition composite scores. HDRS-17, GAF, and remission rates showed no effects of EPO over saline at week 9 (P-value ≥ 0.09). However, EPO improved BDI (P=0.02) and WHOQOL-BREF (P=0.01), and this was maintained at follow-up week 14 (P-values ≤ 0.04). EPO enhanced verbal recall (P=0.02) and recognition (P=0.03), which was sustained at follow-up (P-values ≤ 0.04). Exploratory analysis in patients fulfilling depression severity criteria at trial start revealed ameliorated HDRS-17 in EPO (N=14) vs saline groups (N=17), which was sustained at week 14 (P-values ≤ 0.05). Exploratory analysis in the complete cohort showed that EPO reduced depression composite at weeks 9 and 14 (P-values=0.02). The findings of this exploratory study highlight EPO as an interesting compound for treatment-resistant depression, which deserves further investigation.
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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.