Category: Parkinson's Disease: Non-Motor Symptoms
Objective: The study aimed to examine the anxiety/depression-like phenotype and the potential role of dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) in the gold standard primate model of motor symptoms in PD, the so-called 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) macaque model.
Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD), in which there is widespread degeneration of catecholamine and serotonergic systems, is characterised by both motor and non-motor symptoms, such as impairment in cognitive performance, anxiety and depression.
Method: The anxiety / depression-like phenotype was evaluated in 11 MPTP and 9 normal macaques (Macaca mulatta) by ethological scan in both familiar and unfamiliar Human Intruder Test.
The in vivo extracellular recordings of DRN neurones were also recorded in anesthetised normal (n=6) and MPTP (n=6) macaques. Single-unit activity was assessed by sorting spike trains from each 250-6000Hz band-pass filtered signal via offline spike detection and sorting method. Threshold-crossing method for spike detection principal component analysis for spike feature extraction and K-means clustering method were applied.
Results: The intruder test results showed that MPTP animals presented a significant decrease in attention to the environment and reaction to their social environment which likely may correspond to a depressive-like state. Besides, the results related to the stressful situation (intruder) compared to a less stressful situation (familiar intruder) suggested that the MPTP animals may show more anxiety signs compared to the control. DRN neurons of MPTP group showed an increase in firing frequency compared to the control group.
Conclusion: The rich behavioural repertoire of non-human primates makes them ideal translational models in which neuropsychiatric conditions can be studied. The present results that the MPTP-treated macaque replicates some depressive-like behaviour associated with PD.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
A. Sadoun, M. Deffains, Q. Li, E. Bezard, F. Georges, E. Pioli. The assessment of anxiety and depression comorbidities and the DRN electrophysiology in a primate model of Parkinson’s Disease [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2024; 39 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-assessment-of-anxiety-and-depression-comorbidities-and-the-drn-electrophysiology-in-a-primate-model-of-parkinsons-disease/. Accessed October 7, 2024.« Back to 2024 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-assessment-of-anxiety-and-depression-comorbidities-and-the-drn-electrophysiology-in-a-primate-model-of-parkinsons-disease/