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Subchronic treatment with lithium increases nerve growth factor content in distinct brain regions of adult rats

Molecular Psychiatry volume 7, pages 604–608 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

There is compelling evidence that withdrawal of neurotrophins can lead to impaired neuronal function and even apoptotic death of neurons. Recent experimental evidence suggests that antidepressant drugs and electroconvulsive treatment might work by enhancing CNS levels of neurotrophins. In addition, Lithium (LI) has been shown to exert robust neuroprotective effects apart from its well known mood-stabilizing effects in humans. In this study we investigated the effects of subchronic (14 days) treatment with various doses of LI on the NGF content of several regions of the adult rat brain. LI treatment, which resulted in prophylactic LI serum concentrations (0.72 ± 0.08 mMol l−1), induced a significant (P < 0.05) increase in NGF concentrations in the frontal cortex (+23.2%), hippocampus (+72%), amygdala (+74%) and limbic forebrain (+46.7%) compared to untreated controls, whereas no effects on NGF concentrations were observed in the striatum, the hypothalamus or the midbrain, even using various LI doses. Moreover, no significant change in NGF concentrations in the frontal cortex was observed after acute (1 day) treatment with LI. Our findings lend support to the notion that an enhancement of NGF production may be specifically involved in the mechanisms of action of antibipolar treatments.

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Acknowledgements

M Nagel participated in this study as a medical doctoral student at the Free University of Berlin. We thank Mrs I Pickersgill for technical assistance that has been supported in part by a BMBF grant (RH: ‘Verbund Klinische Pharmakologie Berlin/Brandenburg’, project C6).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Psychiatry, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    R Hellweg, U E Lang & M Nagel

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine (Radiochemistry), Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    A Baumgartner

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  1. R Hellweg
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  2. U E Lang
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  3. M Nagel
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  4. A Baumgartner
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Correspondence to R Hellweg.

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Hellweg, R., Lang, U., Nagel, M. et al. Subchronic treatment with lithium increases nerve growth factor content in distinct brain regions of adult rats. Mol Psychiatry 7, 604–608 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001042

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