By stimulating certain neurons, a team of scientists managed to transform less resilient animal guinea pigs into rats that actively sought pleasure, in research that suggests a possible new path to treating depression.
While some people recover from their traumas and are happy again, there are others who remain stuck in depressive cycles.
Researchers at the University of California in the United States decided to analyze this difference between individuals with a special focus on how the brain shapes these contrasting responses, with the aim of developing treatments for people struggling with persistent symptoms related to the stress.
According to , experts discovered that the Stress alters activity in specific brain circuits in rats. In turn, these changes are responsible for differentiating animals that recover from stress from those that do not.
By stimulating certain neurons in less resilient guinea pigs to increase their activity, scientists observed an important change: the mice stopped focusing on negative experiences and they began to look for pleasure, like drinking sugar water.
“Seeing that we were able to recover these brain signals suggests that doing the same in humans could act as a antidepressant”, explained researcher Mazen Kheirbek. “There is considerable interest in finding out how we can translate our findings into an approach that works in people. If we can do this, we will have a new, non-invasive way to treat depression.”
During their investigation, the researchers looked at a region of the brain called amygdalawhich helps evaluate how risky it can be to seek a reward.
Initially, they observed brain activity while the rats rested and concluded that stress had altered activity in the amygdala of the less resilient animals, much more than in the resilient ones.
When mice were given a choice between plain water and sugar water, the resilient animals easily chose the sugar water, but the less resilient animals chose the sugar water.became obsessed and continually opted for pure water.
Brain recordings from rats that chose fresh water showed that the amygdala was communicate with a brain region next called hippocampus. In the other group, this communication failed.
The was published in Nature.
