BDNF in TRD: New Review From Canada

Out on PubMed, from researchers in Canada, is this review:


Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) as a biomarker of treatment response in patients with Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD): A systematic review & meta-analysis.

Meshkat S, Alnefeesi Y, Jawad MY, D Di Vincenzo J, B Rodrigues N, Ceban F, Mw Lui L, McIntyre RS, Rosenblat JD.Psychiatry Res. 2022 Sep 21;317:114857. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2022.114857. Online ahead of print.PMID: 36194941 Review

The abstract is copied below:

Multiple lines of evidence have implicated brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The aim of this synthesis was to determine the impact of TRD treatments on peripheral BDNF levels, and ascertain whether these changes are associated with antidepressant effects. Thirty-six articles involving 1198 patients with TRD were included herein. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), ketamine, and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) were the most common TRD treatments investigated. Serum BDNF levels significantly increased in six, two, four and one studies following ECT, ketamine, rTMS and atypical antipsychotics, respectively. The estimated mean baseline serum BDNF concentration in TRD patients ± 95% CI was 15.5 ± 4.34 ng/mL. Peripheral BDNF levels significantly increased overall (Hedges' g ± 95% CI = 0.336 ± 0.302; p < 0.05), but no association with depressive symptoms was found (p ≥ 0.05). These results demonstrate that peripheral measurements of total BDNF (i.e., mature and percursor forms of BDNF) are inadequate predictors of treatment response in TRD patients, and other considerations suggest that this would still apply to separable measurements of mature BDNF and its precursor.

Keywords: BDNF; Biomarker; Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor; Depression; ECT; Neurotrophins; TRD; Treatment resistant depression.

The paper is here.

And from the text:



Just when you thought it was safe to assume we had seen the last of BDNF reviews for a while...
So this one concludes there is not much there there. Perhaps the signal is a bit stronger with ECT because ECT is stronger, but even that is uncertain.
BDNF scholars will want to read this paper in full, the rest of us, not so much.
Please see also the blog post of April 12, 2022 for the review of BDNF in ECT from Brazil.

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