Role of progesterone and other neuroactive steroids in anxiety disorders.
It remains unexplained why a greater prevalence of anxiety disorders exists in women than in men, and how female hormone-related events (i.e., menstrual cycle and postpartum) can influence the course of anxiety disorders. It would appear logical that female hormones and their derivatives play a major role in these observations. The abundance of preclinical data demonstrating a role for sex hormones and their derivatives in anxiety-like behavior is in contrast to the relative paucity of experimental clinical data on the role of female hormones and neuroactive steroids in anxiety disorders. There is a dramatic potential for therapeutic anxiolytic activity of pharmacological compounds derived from powerful anxiolytic agents, such as the progesterone derivative, allopregnanolone. As a result, there is currently tremendous interest from the pharmaceutical industry in developing and testing such agents in anxiety disorders.[1]References
- Role of progesterone and other neuroactive steroids in anxiety disorders. Le Mellédo, J.M., Baker, G. Expert review of neurotherapeutics. (2004) [Pubmed]
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