Gaspar Rita, Soares-Cunha Carina, Domingues Ana Verónica, Coimbra Bárbara, Baptista Filipa I, Pinto Luísa, Ambrósio António F, Rodrigues Ana João, Gomes Catarina A
Coimbra Institute for Clinical and Biomedical Research (iCBR), Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Centre for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology (CIBB), University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2022 Mar 7;16:834821. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.834821. eCollection 2022.
Stress exposure has been shown to induce a variety of molecular and functional alterations associated with anxiety and depression. Some studies suggest that microglia, the immune cells of the brain, play a significant role in determining neuronal and behavioral responses to chronic stress and also contribute to the development of stress-related psychopathologies. However, little is known about the impact of the duration of stress exposure upon microglia and neurons morphology, particularly considering sex differences. This issue deserves particular investigation, considering that the process of morphologic remodeling of neurons and microglia is usually accompanied by functional changes with behavioral expression. Here, we examine the effects of short and long unpredictable chronic mild stress (uCMS) protocols on behavior, evaluating in parallel microglia and neurons morphology in the dorsal hippocampus (dHIP) and in the (NAc), two brain regions involved in the etiology of depression. We report that long-term uCMS induced more behavioral alterations in males, which present anxiety and depression-like phenotypes (anhedonia and helplessness behavior), while females only display anxiety-like behavior. After short-term uCMS, both sexes presented anxiety-like behavior. Microglia cells undergo a process of morphologic adaptation to short-term uCMS, dependent on sex, in the NAc: we observed a hypertrophy in males and an atrophy in females, transient effects that do not persist after long-term uCMS. In the dHIP, the morphologic adaptation of microglia is only observed in females (hypertrophy) and after the protocol of long uCMS. Interestingly, males are more vulnerable to neuronal morphological alterations in a region-specific manner: dendritic atrophy in granule neurons of the dHIP and hypertrophy in the medium spiny neurons of the NAc, both after short- or long-term uCMS. The morphology of neurons in these brain regions were not affected in females. These findings raise the possibility that, by differentially affecting neurons and microglia in dHIP and NAc, chronic stress may contribute for differences in the clinical presentation of stress-related disorders under the control of sex-specific mechanisms.
应激暴露已被证明会引发多种与焦虑和抑郁相关的分子和功能改变。一些研究表明,小胶质细胞作为大脑的免疫细胞,在决定神经元和行为对慢性应激的反应中起重要作用,并且也参与应激相关精神病理学的发展。然而,关于应激暴露持续时间对小胶质细胞和神经元形态的影响知之甚少,尤其是考虑到性别差异。鉴于神经元和小胶质细胞的形态重塑过程通常伴随着行为表达的功能变化,这个问题值得特别研究。在这里,我们研究了短期和长期不可预测的慢性轻度应激(uCMS)方案对行为的影响,同时评估了背侧海马体(dHIP)和伏隔核(NAc)中小胶质细胞和神经元的形态,这两个脑区都参与了抑郁症的病因。我们报告称,长期uCMS在雄性中诱导了更多行为改变,表现出焦虑和抑郁样表型(快感缺失和无助行为),而雌性仅表现出焦虑样行为。短期uCMS后,两性均表现出焦虑样行为。在NAc中,小胶质细胞经历了一个依赖于性别的对短期uCMS的形态适应过程:我们观察到雄性中小胶质细胞肥大,雌性中则萎缩,这些短暂效应在长期uCMS后不会持续。在dHIP中,仅在雌性中观察到小胶质细胞的形态适应(肥大),且是在长期uCMS方案之后。有趣的是,雄性以区域特异性方式更容易受到神经元形态改变的影响:短期或长期uCMS后,dHIP颗粒神经元树突萎缩,NAc中等棘状神经元肥大。这些脑区中的神经元形态在雌性中未受影响。这些发现提出了一种可能性,即通过差异性地影响dHIP和NAc中的神经元和小胶质细胞,慢性应激可能在性别特异性机制的控制下导致应激相关障碍临床表现的差异。