Increased levels of glutamate in brains from patients with mood disorders.

Abstract

Glutamate has been thought to have a role in mental disorders. Because the postmortem interval (PMI) has such a pronounced effect on glutamate and other amino acids, it is important that a study be conducted to examine the effects of PMI on these amino acids in postmortem brains and that the analysis of intergroup differences be adjusted accordingly. We determined the levels of amino acids in postmortem brains from patients with major mental disorders by normalizing the effects of the postmortem interval with equations derived from control studies using rodent and primate postmortem brains.