Diffusion-weighted MRI and quantitative biophysical modeling of hippocampal neurite loss in chronic stress

Chronic stress has detrimental effects on physiology, learning and memory and is involved in the development of anxiety and depressive disorders. Besides changes in synaptic formation and neurogenesis, chronic stress also induces dendritic remodeling in the hippocampus, amygdala and the prefrontal c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2011-07, Vol.6 (7), p.e20653-e20653
Main Authors: Vestergaard-Poulsen, Peter, Wegener, Gregers, Hansen, Brian, Bjarkam, Carsten R, Blackband, Stephen J, Nielsen, Niels C, Jespersen, Sune N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amygdala
Animals
Anisotropy
Anxiety
Biophysical Phenomena
Brain
Brain research
Dendritic plasticity
Diffusion
Disorders
Hippocampus
Hippocampus - cytology
Hippocampus - physiology
Learning
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Medicine
Memory
Mental depression
Modelling
Models, Biological
Monkeys & apes
Neurites - metabolism
Neurogenesis
Neurophysiology
Neurosciences
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Physiological aspects
Post traumatic stress disorder
Prefrontal cortex
Rats
Rats, Wistar
Reproducibility of Results
Rodents
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Stress
Stress, Physiological
Stresses
Studies
Time Factors
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Summary:Chronic stress has detrimental effects on physiology, learning and memory and is involved in the development of anxiety and depressive disorders. Besides changes in synaptic formation and neurogenesis, chronic stress also induces dendritic remodeling in the hippocampus, amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Investigations of dendritic remodeling during development and treatment of stress are currently limited by the invasive nature of histological and stereological methods. Here we show that high field diffusion-weighted MRI combined with quantitative biophysical modeling of the hippocampal dendritic loss in 21 day restraint stressed rats highly correlates with former histological findings. Our study strongly indicates that diffusion-weighted MRI is sensitive to regional dendritic loss and thus a promising candidate for non-invasive studies of dendritic plasticity in chronic stress and stress-related disorders.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0020653