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ear Colleagues,
Sadness and despair constitute a normal response to the
threat of death or disease,
bereavement, social
failure, and times of hardship. For thousands of years, humans
have
attempted to cope with, or even
obliterate, negative emotions by consuming alcohol, opi-
ates, and other substances. For the same reasons, they
have also created philosophical and
religious
models of themselves and the world, and devised series of astute mental or
phys-
ical exercises.
Modern
psychopharmacology was born in the 1950s with the development and intro-
duction into clinical practice of tricyclic antidepressants
and monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
Over the
subsequent decades, other antidepressant strategies appeared on the market, such
as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and other
antidepressant classes. More recently,
new
potential antidepressants have been synthesized following on from fundamental
research into the physiology of mood, compounds
such as hormones and nerve growth fac-
tors, and
the biochemistry of brain plasticity. Recent research into circadian rhythm
dis-
turbances, which are often linked
with mood disorders, may also lead to new insights into
the
treatment of mood disorders.
In this issue of Dialogues in Clinical Neurosciences, coordinated
by Dr Pierre Schulz,
experts in several
fields of basic and clinical neuroscience summarize the current knowl-
edge acquired in the field of human mood disorders and
their treatment. From the current
state
of our knowledge, these experts point to directions for the understanding
and the treat-
ment of these severe disorders.
Finally, we are delighted to announce that Dialogues
in Clinical Neuroscience has just
been
selected to be indexed and included in MEDLINE.This is a great honor for our jour-
nal and a clear proof of the quality of the content. Of
behalf of the Editorial Board of
Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, we would like to take
this opportunity to thank all our
previous
authors and reviewers, who have greatly contributed to the success of this
project.
Yours sincerely,
Jean-Paul Macher, MD
Marc-Antoine
Crocq, MD
