Prenatal stress in rats predicts immobility behavior in the forced swim test
Brain Research. 2003-11-01; 989(2): 246-251
DOI: 10.1016/s0006-8993(03)03293-1
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Morley-Fletcher S(1), Darnaudery M, Koehl M, Casolini P, Van Reeth O, Maccari S.
Author information:
(1)Laboratory of Perinatal Stress, University of Lille 1, Bât. SN4.1, 59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France.
Prenatally-stressed (PS) rats are characterized by a general impairment of the
hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sleep disturbances indicating that
this model has face validity with some clinical features observed in a
subpopulation of depressed patients. The prolonged corticosterone secretion
shown by PS rats in response to stress was positively correlated with an
increased immobility behavior in the forced swim test. To investigate the
predictive validity of this model, a separate group of animals was chronically
treated with the antidepressant tianeptine (10 mg/kg i.p. for 21 days). Such
chronic treatment reduced in PS rats immobility time in the forced swim test.
These findings suggest that the PS rat is an interesting animal model for the
evaluation of antidepressant treatment.