Nicotinic receptors promote susceptibility to social stress in female mice linked with neuroadaptations within VTA dopamine neurons.

ABSTRACT: There are about twice as many women as men who experience depression during their lifetime. Although life circumstances and especially exposure to stressful situations constitute a major risk factor to develop depression, the underlying mechanisms have yet to be unraveled. We employed the chronic social defeat procedure to elicit depressive-like symptoms in females and ketamine to validate the model. We performed ex-vivo patch clamp recordings to assess cellular adaptations and used pharmacological agents to dissect these deregulations. Chronic social defeat exposure triggers a hyperactivity of VTA putative dopamine (DA) neurons in females susceptible to stress but not resilient ones. This hyperactivity was fully reversed by a single administration of ketamine. In virally-identified brain

SUBMITTER: Ortiz V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9283477 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature