ArticlePsychopharmacology2025
The interaction between finasteride and corticosterone levels: implications for depression-, and anxiety-like behavior and hippocampal synaptic plasticity in male rats.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Steroid 5α-reductases in the brain: From neurosteroidogenesis to therapeutic implications.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2026Review
- Finasteride withdrawal induces anxiety-like behavior and novelty avoidance in adult male rats.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleFinasteride is FDA-approved for the treatment of hair loss and in older men for benign prostatic hyperplasia. However, some patients treated with finasteride reported suicidal ideation, depression, and anxiety. The neurobiological mechanisms underlying this are not clearly understood. Previously, we showed that short-term finasteride administration results in depression- and anxiety-like behaviour. Since finasteride treatment is long-term in the clinic, we examine the effects of chronic finasteride administration in the current study.
objectiveThis study aims to understand the behavioral, cellular, and molecular changes in male rats following 21 days of finasteride (3 mg, 10 mg, and 30 mg/Kg) administration.
methodsDepression-like behavior was evaluated using forced swim (FST), sucrose preference (SPT), and splash tests. Anxiety-like behavior was assessed using elevated plus maze (EPM), open field (OFT), light-dark (LDT), Vogel's conflict (VCT), and home cage emergence (HCET), and depression-related anxiety in novelty-suppressed feeding task (NSFT) tests. Hippocampal synaptic plasticity was assessed by field excitatory post-synaptic potentials (fEPSP) recordings in the Schaffer-collateral-CA1 synapses, and plasma corticosterone levels were estimated using ELISA.
resultsChronic finasteride administration induced depression-like and anxiety-like behavior in SPT and EPM, respectively, but not in the other paradigms. There was a modest decrease in long-term potentiation in the hippocampus. Interestingly, there was an increase in the plasma corticosterone levels with 6 days of finasteride administration, but not after 14 or 21 days of administration.
conclusionsChronic administration of finasteride did not induce a robust depression- and anxiety-like behavior and modestly affected synaptic plasticity. This could be potentially because of the adaptive response observed in the plasma corticosterone levels.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.