Toward Affective Circuit-Based Preclinical Models of Depression: Sensitizing Dorsal PAG Arousal Lead

Publication year: 2011
Source: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 17 August 2011
Jason S., Wright , Jaak, Panksepp
Little is known about why clinical depression feels so bad, perhaps because optimal neural circuit-based animal models of depression do not yet exist. Our goal here was to develop a strategy of inducing and measuring depressive like states in the rat using neural circuits as both the independent and major dependent variables. We hypothesized that repeated electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) within the dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG) aversion circuits would lead to a long-lasting suppression of 50kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), a validated measure of positive social affect. Fifteen consecutive daily 10min sessions of intermittent PAG-ESB reduced systematically evoked 50kHz…
Highlights: ? New approach to modeling depression in pre-clinical animal model ? Independent and major dependent variable represent distinct neural circuits ? Chronic PAG stimulation leads to long term suppression of positive affect in rats

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