Institute of Neuroscience, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain; Medical Psychology Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Campus Bellaterra, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
Institute of Neuroscience, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain; Medical Psychology Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Campus Bellaterra, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
Exp Gerontol. 2019 Jun;120:107-112. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2019.03.004. Epub 2019 Mar 14.
The increase of prevalence of mental health problems in the elderly due to the aging of the population becomes an outstanding issue since in most individuals it happens in an already complex multimorbid scenario that may include frailty and age-related medical conditions. Depression, soon the major cause of global disease burden, can be found as an age-related comorbidity and frailty, or as part of neurodegenerative diseases and where females are more vulnerable to it. Thought the multifactorial aetiology and heterogeneous nature of depression render it difficult to be modelled in animals, active behaviours elicited in the Forced Swimming Test (FST) are used to screen antidepressant treatments. However, interpretation of immobility remains controversial. The present work addressed this issue in very-old (21 months) female C57bl/6 × 129 mice, also with the concern that a '6 minutes × 2 days' protocol can result demanding for a very-old animal and confounding factors may also arise. Animals were behaviourally assessed for sensorimotor functions, emotionality and anxiety-like behaviours, novelty seeking, and immobility in a 2-days FST. The predictive value of the first day evidenced that one single assay as sufficient for the assessment of immobility, and that the repeated test did not increase the immobility response. Moreover, sensorimotor tasks, neophobia in the corner test and emotional behaviour in the dark-light box correlated with FST immobility, contributing to the response. The results support the concern of geroscience on the relevance of using aged animals but also aware about taking into account the complexity of their comorbid scenario.
由于人口老龄化，老年人心理健康问题的患病率增加，成为一个突出的问题，因为在大多数情况下，这种情况发生在已经复杂的多病共存的情况下，其中可能包括虚弱和与年龄相关的医疗状况。抑郁症很快成为全球疾病负担的主要原因，它可以作为一种与年龄相关的共病和虚弱，或者作为神经退行性疾病的一部分存在，而女性更容易受到影响。尽管抑郁症的多因素病因和异质性使得在动物身上建模变得困难，但在强迫游泳试验（FST）中引起的主动行为被用于筛选抗抑郁治疗方法。然而，对不动性的解释仍然存在争议。本研究在非常老的（21 个月）雌性 C57BL/6×129 小鼠中解决了这个问题，同时也担心“6 分钟×2 天”的方案对非常老的动物来说可能要求过高，并且可能会出现混杂因素。对动物进行了 2 天 FST 的感觉运动功能、情绪和焦虑样行为、新奇寻求和不动性的行为评估。第一天的预测价值表明，单次测定足以评估不动性，并且重复测试不会增加不动性反应。此外，感觉运动任务、角落测试中的新异恐惧和黑暗-光亮箱中的情绪行为与 FST 不动性相关，有助于反应。结果支持衰老科学对使用老年动物的相关性的关注，但也意识到需要考虑到他们共病情况的复杂性。
