Die Rolle des zentralen aminergischen Systems in einem depressiven Tiermodell

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Fritz A. Henn
• Subject Area: Nuclear Medicine, Radiotherapy, Radiobiology
• Term: from 1998 to 2001
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5464533

The current proposal aims to examine the role of NE in the adaptive changes to stress which lead to depression. An attractive hypothesis suggests that the amine systems may control the expression of BDNF, and this may be further regulated by CRH, and that ulitmately the level of expression of BDNF determines the structure and function of relevant brain areas, such as the hippocampus. We will examine the role of NE in this process and also look at the possibility that multiple neurothrophins are involved in the neural adaptations to stress. We will use an animal mode of depression, learned helplessness, in bred strains showing helpless behavior and conditional knockouts to determine the role of NE in this process. A final common pathway for plastic changes most likely involves changes in the level of neurotrophin expression in tissue and subsequent structural changes. One possibility is that structural changes are regulated by the relative rate of the new cell production (Neurogenesis) and cell death. Recent findings that neurogenesis in the hippocampus can be altered by levels of stress or antideppressants suggest the role of neurothrophin expression in determining the rate of neurogenesis should be examined and we will carry out such studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 302: Zentrale aminerge Systeme und Mechanismen