Several lines of evidence implicate oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BPD). The mood stabilizers lithium and valproate have been shown to protect against oxidative stress-induced cell death. This study examined whether an increase in cellular reductive potential due to glutathione (GSH) synthesis up-regulation underlies this neuroprotective effect. Using primary rat cortical neurons as a model, this study demonstrated that unlike lithium and valproate, carbamazepine and lamotrigine do not exert neuroprotective effects against H2O2-induced cell death. Moreover, the level of GSH and the GSH:GSSG ratio in neurons and in rat brain remained unchanged following chronic treatment with either lithium or valproate. Similarly, this study did not find a significant effect of treatment on the expression of genes encoding γ-glutamylcysteine ligase sub-units, Gclc and Gclm, in both neurons and the rat brain. These findings suggest that other molecular targets of lithium and valproate likely mediate the observed neuroprotective effects.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/25888 |
| Date | 13 January 2011 |
| Creators | Pasiliao, Clarissa |
| Contributors | Li, Peter, Warsh, Jerry |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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