PhD Scientific Days 2024

Poster Session I - Neurosciences 2.

Molecular and cognitive underpinnings of comorbid anxiety and depression

Előadó neve

Pejtsik, Diana

Neptun code

VXMST6

Előadó munkahelye

Institute of Experimental Medicine

Előadó telefonszáma

+36209726773

Előadó e-mail címe

pejtsikdiana@gmail.com

Az előadás címe

Molecular and cognitive underpinnings of comorbid anxiety and depression

Szerző(k) neve és munkahelye

Diana Pejtsik¹, Zoltan K Varga¹, Olga Wronikowska², Mate Toth¹, Zsofia Eckert¹, Mano Aliczki¹, Zsolt Borhegyi¹, Kornel Demeter¹, Eva Mikics¹

1: Institute of Experimental Medicine
2: Medical University of Lublin

Bemutatás módja

Poszter

Szekció

Poster Session I - Neurosciences 2.

Language of the presentation

English

Preferred session

Neurosciences

Összefoglaló szövege

Anxiety and depression often co-occur, resulting in more severe symptoms and less efficient pharmacotherapy. To better understand the molecular and cognitive-affective factors underlying comorbid anxiety and depression (CAD), we created a mouse model with high translational validity. Through machine learning-based reduction of an extensive test battery performed on male mice, we developed a protocol that can reproducibly detect stable traits of animals using the light-dark box, forced swim and learned helplessness tests. Repeating these tests multiple times and averaging the results enabled us to detect distinct subpopulations of animals: one that stably showed high trait anxiety, high passive coping, and high learned helplessness, which could model the core symptoms of CAD, and a resilient one with low trait anxiety, active coping and no helplessness. To examine the underlying cognitive factors associated with stable CAD-like traits, we exposed a new population of mice to the Intellicage, an automated home-cage system, where they were tested in cognitive tasks before being subjected to the anxiety-depression test battery. Compared to the resilient subpopulation, comorbid animals showed worse spatial learning abilities, anhedonia and cognitive inflexibility. The stable subpopulations were also detectable in females, which showed lower anxiety-like and higher depression-like behaviour on the level of the population, that was not influenced by their cycle-stage. Finally, RNA sequencing of the medial prefrontal cortex showed a distinct, mitochondria-focused molecular background associated with comorbidity. In conclusion, in a first rodent model of CAD we showed that distinct molecular and cognitive-affective traits are associated with comorbidity. Further investigations could aid the development of more effective pharmacotherapy.

Supported by the SE 250+ Excellence PhD Scholarship, the Hungarian Brain Research Program 2017-1.2.1-NKP-2017-00002, the Eötvös Loránd Research Network SA-49/2021 and the National Laboratory of Translational Neuroscience (RRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00011) grants.

University

Semmelweis University

Supervisor

dr. Éva Mikics

Publication of my abstract

I do not give consent to the publication of my abstract on the website of the congress.

Kind

Szabad

Status

elfogadva

Accepted presentation method

poszter

Előadás fájl jóváhagyás

nem rendelkezett róla

Előadó

7384

Start

15:35

End

15:38