Project description:Chronic stress increases the risk of emotional disorders by altering brain structure and function. Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depressions show activity difference between the two hemispheres in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) but molecular targets associated with this laterality remains unclear. Here, we reveal that chronic social defeats later gene-expression profile differentially between the left and right medial prefrontal cortices (mPFC) in mice.
Project description:In order to better understand the effects of social stress on the prefrontal cortex, we investigated gene expression in mice subjected to acute and repeated social encounters of different duration using microarrays. The observed up-regulation of genes associated with vascular system and brain injury suggests that stressful social encounters may affect brain function through the stress-induced dysfunction of the vascular system. We studied gene expression profiles of prefrontal cortices of male mice subjected to social stress of different durations: Comparisons included: acute stress (24 hours after single social stress episode) vs. acute control (unstressed), stress-8 days vs. control-8 days, stress-13 days vs. control-13 days, stress-13 days+5 days of rest vs. control-13 days+5 days of rest. For each comparison, we analyzed 3 biological replicates per group. Two of out of three biological replicates were further replicated in dye swap (final dye swap failed due to problem during microarray hybridization). Each biological replicate consisted of equal amounts of total RNA from 3 mice subjected to the same experimental condition.
Project description:Deaths related to opioid use have skyrocketed in the United States, leading to a public health epidemic. Research has shown that both biological (genes) and environmental (stress) precursors are linked to opioid use. In particular, stress during adolescence – a critical period of frontal lobe development – influences the likelihood of abusing drugs. However, little is known about the biological mechanisms through which adolescent stress leads to long-term risk of opioid use, or whether genetic background moderates this response. Male and female C57BL/6J were exposed to chronic variable social stress (CVSS) or control conditions throughout adolescence and then tested for prefrontal cortex miRNA gene expression. C57BL/6J mice exposed to CVSS had a downregulation of twelve miRNA in the prefrontal cortex compared to control mice.
Project description:Chronic psychosocial stress is a risk factor for psychiatric disorders, and genetic factors interact in conferring susceptibility. The chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) mouse model allows identifying factors underlying resilience and susceptibility to chronic psychosocial stress. We used RNA-sequencing to identify genes and pathways affected by CSDS in three brain regions: medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventral hippocampus (vHPC), and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), of male mice from strains C57BL/6Crl and DBA/2Crl.
Project description:We carried out untargeted metabolomics of the prefrontal cortex of rats exposed to chronic social isolation (CSIS), a rat model of depression, and/or fluoxetine treatment using liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry.
Project description:Gene expression profiling was carried out on prefrontal cortex mRNA samples collected from 10 animals subject to repeated social threat (pooled into 2 groups of 5) and 10 animals subject to non-threatening control conditions (pooled into 2 groups of 5). The primary research question is whether gene expression differs in prefrontal cortex tissue from animals exposed to social threat vs non-threatening control conditions. Keywords: Risk prediction RNA from 5 mice/sample was pooled to generate 4 total samples: 2 from mice subject to repeated social threat, and 2 from control mice.
Project description:Social stress mouse models were used to simulate human post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). C57B/6 mice exposed to SJL aggressor mice exhibited behaviors accepted as PTSD-in-mouse phenotype: 'frozen' motion, aggressor’s barrier avoidance, startled jumping, and retarded locomotion. Transcripts in hippocampus, amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum (nucleus acumbens), septal region, corpus striatum, hemi-brain, blood, spleen and heart of stressed and control C57B/6 mice were analyzed using Agilent’s mouse genome-wide arrays. C57B6 mice were exposed to SJL aggressor mice for periods of 5 days and 10days (6 hours each day) to induce anxiety/stress which parallels to PTSD in human Organs, blood and brain regions were collected after 24 hours and 1.5 week of post 5 days social defeat period; and 24 hour and 6 weeks post 10 days social stress period.
Project description:This study explored the interaction of early life and adult stress on transcriptional and chromosomal states in a 2x2 design. Male and female mice were subjected to early life stress (ELS) or were standard-reared (Std), were housed normally through adolescence, and were then exposed to 10 days of control (Ctl) or chronic social defeat stress (CSDS: males only) or 3 days of sub-threshold variable stress (STVS: females only) conditions in adulthood. Long-lasting transcriptional alterations were assessed in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAc), medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), and ventral hippocampus (HIP, males only) in adulthood.