Graduate student Dorian Rosen, left, and Alban Gaultier, Dept of Neuroscience
An antidepressant drug used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder could save people from deadly sepsis, new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggests.
Sepsis is a significant cause of death around the world. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Infection calls it “the body’s extreme response to an infection.” Essentially, the body’s immune response spirals out of control, and the normally beneficial inflammation becomes harmful. The result can be tissue damage, organ failure or even death.
To evaluate the potential of one drug, the antidepressant fluvoxamine, to stop sepsis, Gaultier’s team tested it in a mouse model of the disease. The drug worked very effectively, they found. [Read more]