ArticleFrontiers in cellular neuroscience2018
Reduced Synapse and Axon Numbers in the Prefrontal Cortex of Rats Subjected to a Chronic Stress Model for Depression.
Article in Frontiers in cellular neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Regulatory Role of PFC Corticotropin-Releasing Factor System in Stress-Associated Depression Disorders: A Systematic Review.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2023Pooled it
- Substance use involvement moderates the effect of cortisol response on white-matter microstructure longitudinally.Dialogues in clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- Fecal microbiota from chronically stressed donors transfers behavioral and prefrontal cortex gene expression alterations to healthy recipient mice.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Multiplexed changes in synaptic transmission underlie stress-induced reduction of persistent firing in the parietal cortex.Progress in neurobiology · 2026Article
- Aging effects on emotionality, cognition and brain mononuclear cells in Sprague-Dawley rats of both sexes.npj aging · 2026Article
- Synaptic density in the hippocampus of depressed patients: A quantitative electron microscopic study.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- Efficacy of Venlafaxine and Deep Brain Stimulation Against the Effects of Hippocampal Lesion with Ibotenic Acid in Animals Exposed to the Chronic Mild Stress Model of Depression.Current neuropharmacology · 2026Article
- Review
- Potential dietary geroprotectors and their impact on key mechanisms of aging.Biogerontology · 2025Review
- Opposing roles of microglial and macrophagic C3ar1 signaling in stress-induced synaptic and behavioral changes.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Layer-specific input to medial prefrontal cortex is linked to stress susceptibility.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Paranode length in the prefrontal cortex of subjects with major depression and rats under chronic unpredictable stress.Journal of affective disorders · 2025Article
- Single-nucleus RNA sequencing uncovers metabolic dysregulation in the prefrontal cortex of major depressive disorder patients.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effects of ketamine on GABAergic and glutamatergic activity in the mPFC: biphasic recruitment of GABA function in antidepressant-like responses.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Altered synaptic homeostasis: a key factor in the pathophysiology of depression.Cell & bioscience · 2025Review
- Plasma neurofilament light chain mediates the effect of subsyndromal symptomatic depression on cognitive decline in older adults.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Article
- The central role of microglia in major depressive disorder and its potential as a therapeutic target.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Comparison of Serum Neurofilament Light Chain and Tau Protein Levels in Cases with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Their Healthy Siblings and Healthy Controls.Clinical psychopharmacology and neuroscience : the official scientific journal of the Korean College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Effects of ketamine on GABAergic and glutamatergic activity in the mPFC: biphasic recruitment of GABA function in antidepressant-like responses.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Stressful experiences can induce structural changes in neurons of the limbic system. These cellular changes contribute to the development of stress-induced psychopathologies like depressive disorders. In the prefrontal cortex of chronically stressed animals, reduced dendritic length and spine loss have been reported. This loss of dendritic material should consequently result in synapse loss as well, because of the reduced dendritic surface. But so far, no one studied synapse numbers in the prefrontal cortex of chronically stressed animals. Here, we examined synaptic contacts in rats subjected to an animal model for depression, where animals are exposed to a chronic stress protocol. Our hypothesis was that long term stress should reduce the number of axo-spinous synapses in the medial prefrontal cortex. Adult male rats were exposed to daily stress for 9 weeks and afterward we did a post mortem quantitative electron microscopic analysis to quantify the number and morphology of synapses in the infralimbic cortex. We analyzed asymmetric (Type I) and symmetric (Type II) synapses in all cortical layers in control and stressed rats. We also quantified axon numbers and measured the volume of the infralimbic cortex. In our systematic unbiased analysis, we examined 21,000 axon terminals in total. We found the following numbers in the infralimbic cortex of control rats: 1.15 × 10
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