RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sex-specific retinal anomalies induced by chronic social stress in mice
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.09.28.317230
DO 10.1101/2020.09.28.317230
A1 E Arsenault
A1 AA Lavigne
A1 S Mansouri
A1 K Francis
A1 TP Bittar
A1 F Quessy
A1 K Abdallah
A1 A Barbeau
A1 M Hébert
A1 B Labonté
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/29/2020.09.28.317230.abstract
AB Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common consequences of chronic stress. Still, there is currently no reliable biomarker to detect individuals at risk to develop MDD. Recently, the retina emerged as an effective way to approach the brain and investigate psychiatric disorders with the use of the electroretinogram (ERG). In this study, cones and rods ERGs were performed in male and female mice before and after chronic social defeat stress (CSDS). Mice were then divided as susceptible or resilient to stress. Significant results were only observed in rods ERGs. In males, susceptible mice showed prolonged a-wave implicit times at baseline that were shortened after CSDS. The a-wave was also decreased in both susceptible and resilient male mice after CSDS. In females, rod a-waves were shorter in susceptible than in control mice after CSDS resulting from the latter demonstrating delayed a-waves. Baseline ERGs were able to predict – to some extent – the expression of susceptibility and resilience before stress exposition in male and female mice. Overall, our findings suggest that retinal activity is a presumptive biomarker of stress response and that the ERG could potentially serve as a predicting tool of the stress response in mice.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.