Research
3,5-ALLO, Fluoxetine

Investigator: John Davis, M.D.

Primary Objectives

We postulate that this substance functions to control anxiety, that, 3,5-ALLO is low in panic attack disease, and that fluoxetine’s effect in increasing 3,5-ALLO might be he mediating mechanism for fluoxetine’s anti-panic attack property. We also postulate that the 3,5-ALLO level of low before the panic attack and increases too little with the panic attack to have an effective anti-anxiety effect. After fluoxetine, 3,5-ALLO levels would be increased from low levels to normal levels, and we expect this increase with lactate would block the clinical panic attack. If 3,5-ALLO is part of the cause of panic attack disease, it would be he first endogenous mental illness-related substance discovered.

Secondary Objectives

A secondary objective is to find out whether the increase of neurosteroids in plasma parallels that in the brain, as inferred from the CSF measurements. Since plasma is substantially easier to obtain than CSF, if there is a parallelism it will be much easier to correlate changes in neurosteroid plasma content against fluoxetine-induced antidysphoric action. We will measure he decrease in dysphoric symptoms caused by fluoxetine and correlate this with neurosteroid levels in spinal fluid and/or plasma.