Produção Nacional
Revisado por pares
Immobility behavior during the forced swim test correlates with BNDF levels in the frontal cortex, but not with cognitive impairments
2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 140; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/j.physbeh.2014.12.024
ISSN1873-507X
AutoresMilene Borsoï, Camila B. Antonio, Alice Fialho Viana, Patrícia Nardin, Carlos‐Alberto Gonçalves, Stela Maris Kuze Rates,
Tópico(s)Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity mechanisms
ResumoThe forced swim test (FST) is widely used to evaluate the antidepressant-like activity of compounds and is sensitive to stimuli that cause depression-like behaviors in rodents. The immobility behavior observed during the test has been considered to represent behavioral despair. In addition, some studies suggest that the FST impairs rats' performance on cognitive tests, but these findings have rarely been explored. Thus, we investigated the effects of the FST on behavioral tests related to neuropsychiatric diseases that involve different cognitive components: novel object recognition (NOR), the object location test (OLT) and prepulse inhibition (PPI). Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels in the frontal cortex and hippocampus were evaluated. The rats were forced to swim twice (15-min session followed by a 5-min session 24 h later) and underwent cognitive tests 24 h after the last swimming exposure. The FST impaired the rats' performance on the OLT and reduced the PPI and acoustic startle responses, whereas the NOR was not affected. The cognitive impairments were not correlated with an immobility behavior profile, but a significant negative correlation between the frontal BDNF levels and immobility behavior was identified. These findings suggest a protective role of BDNF against behavioral despair and demonstrate a deleterious effect of the FST on spatial memory and pre-attentive processes, which point to the FST as a tool to induce cognitive impairments analogous to those observed in depression and in other neuropsychiatric disorders.
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