Cone Neurosurgical Research Laboratory, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Brain Res Bull. 2012 Mar 10;87(4-5):406-12. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2012.01.010. Epub 2012 Jan 31.
Depression is a brain disorder and there is still only a partial understanding of its underlying pathophysiology. Antidepressant medications with a fast onset have not yet been developed. In addition to the monoaminergic systems, the brain glutaminergic system has been implicated in the etiology of depression. Animal studies of depression have gained importance because they permit a more invasive manipulation of the subjects than human studies. In the present study, we measured the densities of the brain regional metabotropic glutaminergic receptor 5 (mGluR5) in the Flinders Sensitive Line (FSL) rat model of depression and two groups of control rats, the Flinders Resistant Line (FRL) and Sprague Dawley (SPD), the parent strain for both the FSL and FRL rats. The FSL rats showed lower densities of mGluR5 in many brain regions compared to either the SPD and/or FRL rats. In addition, the densities in the FRL rats were larger than in the SPD rats, suggesting possible problems in using FRL rats as controls. The presented data suggest that mGluR5 is lower in animal models of depression which could be related to the cognitive and emotional dysfunctions in the FSL rat model of depression and could be relevant to a better understanding of depression in humans.
抑郁症是一种脑部疾病，目前我们对其潜在的病理生理学机制仍只有部分了解。尚未研发出起效迅速的抗抑郁药物。除单胺能系统外，脑谷氨酸能系统也与抑郁症的病因有关。抑郁症的动物研究变得更为重要，因为与人类研究相比，动物研究可以对研究对象进行更具侵入性的操作。在本研究中，我们测量了抑郁的弗林德斯敏感型（FSL）大鼠模型以及两组对照大鼠（弗林德斯抗性型 FRL 和斯普拉格-道利 SPD）的脑区域性代谢型谷氨酸受体 5（mGluR5）的密度。与 SPD 和/或 FRL 大鼠相比，FSL 大鼠的许多脑区 mGluR5 密度均较低。此外，FRL 大鼠的密度大于 SPD 大鼠，这表明将 FRL 大鼠用作对照可能存在问题。本研究结果表明，抑郁动物模型中的 mGluR5 水平较低，这可能与 FSL 大鼠抑郁模型中的认知和情绪功能障碍有关，并且可能有助于更好地理解人类抑郁症。
