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Abstract:
The forced swimming test (FST) is considered one of the most widely used and reliable animal models of depression for the assessment of antidepressant activity
and for examining the pathophysiology of depression pre-clinically [1]. The impaired synaptic efficacy due to the FST procedure involving severe physical and
emotional stress has been reported in the rat hippocampus, and the synaptic efficacy shows significant improvement after being treated with repetitive transcranial
magnetic stimulation (rTMS) [2]. We recently reported a significantly increased Cho/Cr ratio in the dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex (DLPFC) of rats exposed to the FST
compared with control animals [3], which is similar to results obtained from investigations of patients with depression [4]. To extend our previous findings and
characterize the variation of the hippocampal Cho/Cr ratio in an animal model of depression, we systematically examined the Cho/Cr ratio in the hippocampus of rats
exposed to the FST and controls by using relatively small volume-of-interest (VOI) compared with our previous study that specifically focused on the homogeneous
hippocampus tissue.
