Post Doctoral Fellow

Centre of the Cellular Basis of Behaviour

Psychological Medicine

King's College London (London, UK)

Carmine M Pariante, Jack Price

The Effects of Antidepressants on Glucocorticoid Receptor Function in Neural Precursor Cells

I am interested in the relationship between stress, depression and adult hippocampal neurogenesis.
Studies have shown that both psychosocial stress and glucocorticoid hormones can reduce the birth of new neurons in the hippocampus of the adult brain. These changes in neurogenesis correlate with the elevation in glucocorticoid levels and the severity of depressive symptoms in animal models. Antidepressants are known to reverse depressive symptoms in humans and rodents and also to normalize stress dependent reduction in hippocampal neurogenesis. Furthermore, research from our laboratory has shown that antidepressants can modulate the function of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), a ligand-dependent transcription factor, which causes alterations in gene expression upon activation by glucocorticoid hormones.
My research focuses on the effects of glucocorticoid hormones and antidepressants on proliferation, differentiation and neuronal maturation of human hippocampal progenitor cells. I am investigating the role of the GR in these changes in neurogenesis, and I am examining molecular signaling pathways by which antidepressants regulate GR function in stem cells.

http://podcast.ft.com/index.php?pid=1198

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028083.500-how-antidepressants-boost-growth-of-new-brain-cells.html