Presentation Title
Acute Ketamine Exposure during Adolescence Reverses Depressive-Like Behavior after Social Defeat Stress
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
College
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Major
Biology
Psychology
Session Number
1
Location
RM 218
Juror Names
Moderator: Dr. Donna Garcia
Start Date
5-21-2015 1:40 PM
End Date
5-21-2015 2:00 PM
Abstract
The National Institutes of Mental Health has portrayed major depressive disorder (MDD) to affect approximately 10 percent of children and adolescents. Currently, fluoxetine (FLX; Prozac) is the only pharmacological agent approved to treat juvenile MDD, despite that almost 50 percent of patients do not respond. Additionally, even if remission does occur, this often takes weeks of treatment, thus, necessitating a novel rapid-acting therapeutic agent for the treatment of juvenile MDD. Recent studies suggest that ketamine (N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist) might be a promising antidepressant, since its shown to rapidly reverse symptoms of depression in adults. However, this has yet to be examined in younger population at both the preclinical and clinical level. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to examine the antidepressant efficacy of ketamine, by exposing adolescent mice to social defeat stress – a paradigm used to induce depressive-like behaviors. We hypothesize that ketamine will reverse stress-induced avoidance behaviors in adolescent mice. On postnatal (PD) 35, c57BL/6 mice underwent social defeat stress for 10 consecutive days at intervals of 10 minutes each day. On the last day of defeat, mice were injected with ketamine (20 mg/kg), and tested on social interaction twenty-four hours later. As expected, defeated adolescent mice administered with saline exhibited a depressive-like response (i.e., increased social avoidance). Conversely, exposure to ketamine prevented the development of the stressinduced avoidance phenotype. Together, these findings indicate that ketamine may be a potential novel agent for the treatment of juvenile MDD.
Acute Ketamine Exposure during Adolescence Reverses Depressive-Like Behavior after Social Defeat Stress
RM 218
The National Institutes of Mental Health has portrayed major depressive disorder (MDD) to affect approximately 10 percent of children and adolescents. Currently, fluoxetine (FLX; Prozac) is the only pharmacological agent approved to treat juvenile MDD, despite that almost 50 percent of patients do not respond. Additionally, even if remission does occur, this often takes weeks of treatment, thus, necessitating a novel rapid-acting therapeutic agent for the treatment of juvenile MDD. Recent studies suggest that ketamine (N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist) might be a promising antidepressant, since its shown to rapidly reverse symptoms of depression in adults. However, this has yet to be examined in younger population at both the preclinical and clinical level. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to examine the antidepressant efficacy of ketamine, by exposing adolescent mice to social defeat stress – a paradigm used to induce depressive-like behaviors. We hypothesize that ketamine will reverse stress-induced avoidance behaviors in adolescent mice. On postnatal (PD) 35, c57BL/6 mice underwent social defeat stress for 10 consecutive days at intervals of 10 minutes each day. On the last day of defeat, mice were injected with ketamine (20 mg/kg), and tested on social interaction twenty-four hours later. As expected, defeated adolescent mice administered with saline exhibited a depressive-like response (i.e., increased social avoidance). Conversely, exposure to ketamine prevented the development of the stressinduced avoidance phenotype. Together, these findings indicate that ketamine may be a potential novel agent for the treatment of juvenile MDD.
