What is “Substance P”?
A. Substance P is a neurotransmitter found in both the peripheral and central nervous systems. Substance P is involved in the perception of painful stimuli throughout the body. Some believe substance P plays a role in the regulation of mood, especially depression. One of the large drug companies has recently done a study with a substance P blocking agent to see if it has clinically useful antidepressant effects and to see how it compared with Prozac and other antidepressants. To date the results have been disappointing. It doesn’t look as if a new antidepressant that works on the substance P system will be released for clinical use in the near future. Note: After his lecture, Dr. Goldberg further commented on Substance P: I think the substance P issue is up in the air. It is time that drug companies start looking beyond the three of four neurotransmitters that we hear about all of the time. There are about 350 possible neurotransmitters in the brain and I have no doubt that many of the
