The behavior of transgenic mice with impaired type II glucocorticoid receptor function was examined in a nonspatial learning task, the forced swim test, as well as in a spatial memory task, the water maze. Antidepressants have been shown to alter behavioral performance in these paradigms, as well as HPA axis activity in these animals. Transgenic and B6C 3F1 mice were therefore chronically or acutely injected with desipramine (10 mg/kg) or fluoxetine (10 mg/kg) for the forced swim test. Both drugs were chronically administered for the water maze. Transgenic mice exhibited impairments in the forced swim test that could be secondary to a cognitive deficit or to disrupted affective processes. Chronic and acute desipramine exacerbated these deficits, whereas chronic and acute fluoxetine ameliorated the performance. Drug resistant impairments in the water maze could be attributable to hippocampal aberrations resulting from glucocorticoid neurotoxicity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.20295 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Rousse, Isabelle. |
| Contributors | Rochford, Joseph (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Psychiatry.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001643460, proquestno: MQ44329, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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