Our Center has recently launched a new initiative to study CREB and the other molecular targets of interestto Projects 1-4 in brain reward regions of depressed humans on autopsy. This work focuses primarily on theNAc (nucleus accumbens) and VTA (ventraltegmental area). This endeavor represents a new Project 5 forthe Center in this competitive renewal.We have already begun the collection of brains from depressed humans via the Dallas Brain Collection.Such collections have been proceeding at a rapid pace, which ensures the availability of an adequately largeenough sample for meaningful analysis. The Project offers several powerful features for Center research. 1)We utilize the most stringent and rigorous measures of brain tissue quality, which is essential for postmortembrain studies. 2) Our focus on human brain reward regions complements most current efforts in the field,which have largely analyzed other brain circuits. 3) By focusing on the same genes and proteins thatpreclinical investigators study in rodent models of depression, the Project provides a major driving force forthe critical translational mission of our Center. 4) We will examine these molecular targets both as a functionof a diagnosis of depression (i.e., as seen in patients with major depression) and as a function of symptomsof depression (i.e., as seen across several diagnoses, including major depression, bipolar depression, andschizoaffective disorder with depression). 5) Alterations in molecular targets in the VTA and NAc will also becharacterized as a function of developmental risk factors for depression (based on extensive history of thehuman subjects) and of particular genotypes recently implicated in genetic risk for depression. 6) The Projectwill study the possible influence of long-term antidepressant treatment on these molecular targets by treatingrodents with prototypical agents for 6 months.We are very excited by the potential of this new initiative. We have demonstrated the feasibility of studyingthe various gene products of interest in human postmortem NAc and have already documentedabnormalities in some of these products, which we know are altered in rodent depression models. At thesame time, findings from the human tissue have provided new insight into regulation of these molecularpathways, which is guiding the preclinical research in the other Projects. Moreover, we have established thecapability of carrying out advanced molecular analyses on human postmortem tissue, including, well beyondtraditional DNA expression arrays, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), ChIP on chip, and microRNAassays in conjunction with the Chromatin and Gene Regulation Core. Together, the proposed studies willprovide a uniquely powerful analysis of molecular pathologies in the human VTA-NAc associated withdepression and its treatment.
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