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Sex and estrous-phase dependent alterations in depression-like behavior following mild traumatic brain injury in adolescent rats
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Sex and estrous-phase dependent alterations in depression-like behavior following mild traumatic brain injury in adolescent rats

Laura L Giacometti, Jimmy W Huh and Ramesh Raghupathi
Journal of neuroscience research, v 100(2), pp 490-505
Feb 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jnr.24989
PMID: 34850450
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel

Abstract

Animals Anxiety - psychology Behavior, Animal Brain Concussion - complications Depression - etiology Depression - psychology Estrus Female Male Rats Swimming - psychology
Following mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), high school and collegiate-aged females tend to report more emotional symptoms than males. Adolescent male and female rats (35 days old) were subjected to mild TBI and evaluated for anxiety- and depression-like behaviors using the elevated plus maze and forced swim test (FST), respectively, and cellular alterations. Injured brains did not exhibit an overt lesion, atrophy of tissue or astrocytic reactivity underneath the impact site at 6-week post-injury, suggestive of the mild nature of trauma. Neither male nor female brain-injured rats exhibited anxiety-like behavior at 2 or 6 weeks, regardless of estrous phase at the time of behavior testing. Brain-injured male rats did not exhibit any alterations in immobility, swimming and climbing times in the FST compared to sham-injured rats at either 2- or 6-week post-injury. Brain-injured female rats did, however, exhibit an increase in immobility (in the absence of changes in swimming and climbing times) in the FST at 6 weeks post-injury only during the estrus phase of the estrous cycle, suggestive of a depression-like phenotype. Combined administration of the estrogen receptor antagonist, tamoxifen, and the progesterone receptor antagonist, mifepristone, during proestrus was able to prevent the depression-like phenotype observed during estrus. Taken together, these data suggest that female rats may be more vulnerable to exhibiting behavioral deficits following mild TBI and that estrous phase may play a role in depression-like behavior.

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13 citations in Web of Science
13 citations in Scopus

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Neurosciences
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