Chronic Lithium Treatment Affects Anxious Behaviors and theExpression of Serotonergic Genes in Midbrain Raphe Nuclei of Defeated Male Mice

There is experimental evidence that chronic social defeat stress is accompanied by the development of an anxiety, development of a depression-like state, and downregulation of serotonergic genes in midbrain raphe nuclei of male mice. Our study was aimed at investigating the effects of chronic lithiu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biomedicines 2021-09, Vol.9 (10), p.1293
Main Authors: Smagin, Dmitry A., Kovalenko, Irina L., Galyamina, Anna G., Belozertseva, Irina V., Tamkovich, Nikolay V., Baranov, Konstantin O., Kudryavtseva, Natalia N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aggressiveness
Animals
Anxiety
Anxiolytics
Behavior
Bipolar disorder
chronic social defeat stress
Clinical medicine
depression
Experiments
Gene expression
Lithium
Lithium chloride
Males
Mesencephalon
mice
Polymerase chain reaction
Psychotropic drugs
Raphe nuclei
Serotonin
Social interactions
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Summary:There is experimental evidence that chronic social defeat stress is accompanied by the development of an anxiety, development of a depression-like state, and downregulation of serotonergic genes in midbrain raphe nuclei of male mice. Our study was aimed at investigating the effects of chronic lithium chloride (LiCl) administration on anxiety behavior and the expression of serotonergic genes in midbrain raphe nuclei of the affected mice. A pronounced anxiety-like state in male mice was induced by chronic social defeat stress in daily agonistic interactions. After 6 days of this stress, defeated mice were chronically treated with saline or LiCl (100 mg/kg, i.p., 2 weeks) during the continuing agonistic interactions. Anxiety was assessed by behavioral tests. RT-PCR was used to determine Tph2, Htr1a, Htr5b, and Slc6a4 mRNA expression. The results revealed anxiolytic-like effects of LiCl on social communication in the partition test and anxiogenic-like effects in both elevated plus-maze and social interaction tests. Chronic LiCl treatment upregulated serotonergic genes in midbrain raphe nuclei. Thus, LiCl effects depend on the treatment mode, psycho-emotional state of the animal, and experimental context (tests). It is assumed that increased expression of serotonergic genes is accompanied by serotonergic system activation and, as a side effect, by higher anxiety.
ISSN:2227-9059
2227-9059
DOI:10.3390/biomedicines9101293