GLUTAMATERGIC ROLE IN THE LIGHT NEUROFILAMENT DECREASE IN CA3 HIPPOCAMPAL NEURONS OF ANIMALS EXPOSED TO INESCAPABLE STRESS

CLADOUCHOS, MARÍA LAURA; FERNÁNDEZ MACEDO, GEORGINA; SIFONIOS, LAURA; CASSANELLI, PABLO MARTÍN; WIKINSKI, SILVIA

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 15th World Congress of Psychiatry; 2011

World Psychiatric Association

Neuron atrophy has been shown both in the hippocampus of depressive patients and of animals exposed to experimental models of depression. Cytoskeleton proteins are structural components of neurons that have been shown affected in models of the disease. This work was aimed to investigate the glutamate transduction pathways associated with the decrease of the light neurofilament subunit (NFL) in animals exposed to inescapable stress (IS). Male adult rats were exposed to IS (60 footshocks lasting 15 sec during 1 hour). Control rats (C) were not exposed to stress. To explore the participation of glutamate in the above mentioned decrease, 30 minutes before exposure to IS, animals were injected (i.p.) with vehicle or with the antagonists of the NMDA or the AMPA glutamate receptors (MK-801, 1mg/kg and CNQX, 0.75 mg/kg respectively). One hour or four days later animals were sacrificed for PKA and PKC activity measurement in extracts of hippocampus and for NFL quantification by immunohistochemistry in slices of brain. No differences were found in PKA or PKC activity between C and IS animals. IS-vehicle animals showed a significant decrement in NFL relative area compared with C-vehicle animals (p