Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 103, Issue 35, Pages 13208-13213Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0605180103
Keywords
amygdala; chronic stress; hippocampus; morphology; dendritic spines
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Funding
- Wellcome Trust Funding Source: Medline
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Although neurotrophins have been postulated to have antidepressant properties, their effect on anxiety is not clear. We find that transgenic overexpression of the neurotrophin BDNF has an unexpected facilitatory effect on anxiety-like behavior, concomitant with increased spinogenesis in the basolateral annygdala. Moreover, anxiogenesis and amygdalar spinogenesis are also triggered by chronic stress in control mice but are occluded by BDNF overexpression, thereby suggesting a role for BDNF signaling in stress-induced plasticity in the amygdala. BDNF overexpression also causes antidepressant effects, because transgenic mice exhibit improved performance on the Porsolt forced-swim test and an absence of chronic stress-induced hippocampal atrophy. Thus, structural changes in the amygdala and hippocampus, caused by genetic manipulation of the same molecule BDNF, give rise to contrasting effects on anxiety and depressive symptoms, both of which are major behavioral correlates of stress disorders.
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