@article{SpinelliMuellerFriedeletal.2013,
  author    = {Spinelli, Simona and M{\"u}ller, Tanja and Friedel, Miriam and Sigrist, Hannes and Lesch, Klaus-Peter and Henkelman, Mark and Rudin, Markus and Seifritz, Erich and Pryce, Christopher R.},
  title     = {Effects of repeated adolescent stress and serotonin transporter gene partial knockout in mice on behaviors and brain structures relevant to major depression},
  series = {Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience},
  volume    = {7},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience},
  doi       = {10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00215},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-122240},
  pages     = {215},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {In humans, exposure to stress during development is associated with structural and functional alterations of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala (AMY), and hippocampus (HC) and their circuits of connectivity, and with an increased risk for developing major depressive disorder particularly in carriers of the short (s) variant of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR). Although changes in these regions are found in carriers of the s allele and/or in depressed patients, evidence for a specific genotype x developmental stress effect on brain structure and function is limited. Here, we investigated the effect of repeated stress exposure during adolescence in mice with partial knockout of the 5-HIT gene (HET) vs. wildtype (WT) on early-adulthood behavioral measures and brain structure [using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)] relevant to human major depression. Behaviorally, adolescent stress (AS) increased anxiety and decreased activity and did so to a similar degree in HET and WT. In a probabilistic reversal learning task, HET-AS mice achieved fewer reversals than did HET-No-AS mice. 5-HIT genotype and AS were without effect on corticosterone stress response. In terms of structural brain differences, AS reduced the volume of two long-range white matter tracts, the optic tract (OT) and the cerebral peduncle (CP), in WT mice specifically. In a region-of-interest analysis, AS was associated with increased HC volume and HET genotype with a decreased frontal lobe volume. In conclusion, we found that 5-HIT and AS genotype exerted long-term effects on behavior and development of brain regions relevant to human depression.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{BonnSchmittLeschetal.2013,
  author    = {Bonn, M. and Schmitt, A. and Lesch, K.-P. and Van Bockstaele, E. J. and Asan, E.},
  title     = {Serotonergic innervation and serotonin receptor expression of NPY-producing neurons in the rat lateral and basolateral amygdaloid nuclei},
  series = {Brain Structure and Function},
  volume    = {218},
  journal   = {Brain Structure and Function},
  number    = {2},
  doi       = {10.1007/s00429-012-0406-5},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-132591},
  pages     = {421-435},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Pharmacobehavioral studies in experimental animals, and imaging studies in humans, indicate that serotonergic transmission in the amygdala plays a key role in emotional processing, especially for anxiety-related stimuli. The lateral and basolateral amygdaloid nuclei receive a dense serotonergic innervation in all species studied to date. We investigated interrelations between serotonergic afferents and neuropeptide Y (NPY)-producing neurons, which are a subpopulation of inhibitory interneurons in the rat lateral and basolateral nuclei with particularly strong anxiolytic properties. Dual light microscopic immunolabeling showed numerous appositions of serotonergic afferents on NPY-immunoreactive somata. Using electron microscopy, direct membrane appositions and synaptic contacts between serotonin-containing axon terminals and NPY-immunoreactive cellular profiles were unequivocally established. Double in situ hybridization documented that more than 50 \%, and about 30-40 \% of NPY mRNA-producing neurons, co-expressed inhibitory 5-HT1A and excitatory 5-HT2C mRNA receptor subtype mRNA, respectively, in both nuclei with no gender differences. Triple in situ hybridization showed that individual NPY mRNA-producing interneurons co-express both 5-HT1A and 5-HT2C mRNAs. Co-expression of NPY and 5-HT3 mRNA was not observed. The results demonstrate that serotonergic afferents provide substantial innervation of NPY-producing neurons in the rat lateral and basolateral amygdaloid nuclei. Studies of serotonin receptor subtype co-expression indicate a differential impact of the serotonergic innervation on this small, but important, population of anxiolytic interneurons, and provide the basis for future studies of the circuitry underlying serotonergic modulation of emotional stimulus processing in the amygdala.},
  language  = {en}
}