Neurochemistry and Neuropharmacology
Author: Karen Melany Stefani | email: karen.stefani.1995@gmail.com
Karen M. Stefani 1°, Alba Vieites Prado 2°, Patricia Gaspar 2°, Nicolas Renier 2°, Silvina L. Diaz 1°
1° Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencias “Prof. E. De Robertis” (IBCN), Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Buenos Aires
2° Institut du Cerveau (ICM)/Paris Brain Institute
Perinatal exposure to antidepressants may have long term consequences in affective behaviors during childhood. These impairments have been also well characterized in adult mice after postnatal exposition to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants. Nevertheless, the impact of this kind of exposition on memory tasks as well as on the process of adult neurogenesis has been less explored so far. We orally treated C57BL/6 male and female mice from P2 to P14 with the SSRI fluoxetine (10 mg/kg) or vehicle. The survival of newborn neurons in the hippocampus of 3-month-old animals was analyzed through EdU and BrdU labeling, showing a significant decrease of immature neurons in mice that have received fluoxetine. In addition, SSRI-treated mice assayed in the memory object recognition test had a significant worse performance than control animals. We also conducted the object pattern separation test, and confirmed that mice that have received postnatal fluoxetine were less able to pattern separate, an ability that is linked to the role of immature neurons. Brain 5-HT levels and expression of the immediate early gene c-fos in the dorsal and ventral hippocampus were also affected by the SSRI treatment. All in all, our results show that early exposition to SSRI antidepressants in mice affects the development of newborn neurons in the hippocampus with lasting consequences on memory abilities.