Citalopram administration does not promote function or histological recovery after spinal cord injury

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences 2020-07, Vol.21 (14), p.1-17
• Main Authors: Lima, Rui, Monteiro, Susana, Gomes, Eduardo Domingos Correia, Vasconcelos, Natália L., Assunção-Silva, Rita, Morais, Mónica, Salgado, A. J., Silva, Nuno André Martins
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal models; Animals; Antidepressants; Citalopram; Citalopram - administration & dosage; Citalopram - therapeutic use; Cytokines; Degeneration; Disease Models, Animal; Female; Genotype & phenotype; Inflammation; motor recovery; Motor task performance; Neurogenesis; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Recovery of Function - drug effects; Science & Technology; Serotonin; Serotonin uptake inhibitors; Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors - administration & dosage; Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors - therapeutic use; Spinal Cord - drug effects; Spinal Cord - pathology; Spinal Cord - physiopathology; Spinal cord injuries; Spinal Cord Injuries - drug therapy; Spinal Cord Injuries - pathology; Spinal Cord Injuries - physiopathology; spinal cord injury; SSRI; Treatment Outcome; Tumor necrosis factor-TNF
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms21145062

Citalopram is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and although widely used as an antidepressant, this drug has also demonstrated interesting repairing properties leading to motor recovery and pathology amelioration in animal models of stroke and degeneration. Here, we tested the efficacy of both 7-day and 8-week citalopram treatment in a contusive spinal cord injury (SCI) rat model. A combination of behavioral tests, histological and serum cytokine analysis was used to assess overall recovery. Despite promoting a mild reduction of inflammatory cells as well as an early, but transient increase of specific serum cytokines, citalopram administration showed no overall beneficial effects on motor performance or lesion extension. Our results do not support citalopram treatment as a therapeutic strategy for SCI. This research was funded by Prémios Santa Casa Neurociências—Prize Melo e Castro for SpinalCord Injury Research, Grant Number MC-04/17 and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology(FCT) through the Scientific Employment Stimulus to N. Silva and S. Monteiro (CEECIND/04794/2017 and CEECIND/01902/2017) and fellowships to RL (PD/BDE/127836/2016); EDG (SFRH/BD/103075/2014);NLV (SFRH/BD/136952/2018) and R.AS (PDE/BDE/113596/2015).This work was also funded by FEDER,through the Competitiveness Internalization Operational Program (POCI) and by National funds, throughthe Foundation for Sciences and Technology (FCT), under the scope of the projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007038,POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029206, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029751 and PTDC/BTM-MAT/29968/2017. This work hasbeen funded by ICVS Scientific Microscopy Platform, member of the national infrastructure PPBI - PortuguesePlatform of Bioimaging (PPBI-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022122; by National funds, through the Foundationfor Science and Technology (FCT) - project UIDB/50026/2020 and UIDP/50026/2020; and by the projectsNORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000013, supported by the Northern Portugal Regional Operational Program (NORTE2020), under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).