News
Accelerated Neuronal Maturation with Antidepressant Treatment
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) speed maturation of neurons as well as increase neurogenesis, according to a report by Wang et al. in this issue.
Like others, these authors found that chronic treatment with the SSRI fluoxetine (Prozac) increased the number of newborn neurons in adult rats, as indicated by immunostaining for bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) and the neuronal marker neuronal-specific nuclear protein (NeuN). In addition, fluoxetine treatment decreased the proportion of BrdU- and NeuN-positive neurons that expressed doublecortin, a marker of young neurons, suggesting that more newborn neurons had fully matured. Furthermore, those neurons that did express doublecortin had more extensive dendritic arbors than neurons in controls. Killing new neurons with x-irradiation prevented the reduced latency to eat food in a novel environment and blocked the enhancement of a form of LTP that is normally observed in rats chronically treated with fluoxetine, indicating that neurogenesis is required for some physiological and behavioral effects of fluoxetine.