Kivonat:
An intriguing novel pathophysiological insight into mood
disorders is the notion that one's metabolic status influences
mood. In rodents, cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript
(CART) and nesfatin-1/NUCB2 have not only been implicated in
metabolism, but in the pathobiology of anxiety and depressive-
like behaviour, however they have not previously been
investigated in depressed subjects. Both peptides are highly
expressed in centrally projecting neurons in the Edinger-
Westphal nucleus (EWcp) in the midbrain. The EWcp has been
implicated in stress adaptation and stress-related mood
disorders like major depressive disorder in a sex-specific
manner. This is intriguing, given the fact that females have
higher prevalence of mood disorders. Here, we hypothesized that
the expression of CART and nesfatin-1 in EWcp would exhibit a
sex-specific difference between depressed suicide victims vs.
controls. We found that CART and nesfatin/NUCB2 colocalized in
the human EWcp, and that CART mRNA content was much higher in
both male (x3.8) and female (x5.9) drug-free suicide victims
than in controls (persons who died without any diagnosed
neurodegenerative or psychiatric disorder). Similarly, NUCB2
mRNA content was also higher (x1.8) in male suicides, whereas in
female suicide victims, these contents were x2.7 lower compared
to controls. These observations are the first to show changes in
the dynamics of CART and nesfatin/NUCB2 expressions in the
midbrain of drug-free depressed suicide victims vs. controls.
This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Anxiety and
Depression'.
