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The Role of Glucocorticoid Hormones in the Stress-Protective Effects of Hypoxic Postconditioning in Models of Depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Rats

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The effects of using neuroprotective hypoxic hypobaric postconditioning (PostC) were studied in two experimental models: stress-restress post-traumatic stress disorder and learned helplessness depression in rats. PostC (360 mmHg, 2 h) was applied as three sessions with 24-h intervals, the first session being 24 h after pathogenic psychoemotional stress. The open field and elevated plus maze behavioral tests showed that PostC had antidepressant and anxiolytic effects. Along with behavioral symptoms, deviations in the basal blood corticosterone level specific for each pathology and modifications to glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and corticoliberin (CL) immunoreactivity in the hippocampus were reversed after use of PostC. Studies using injections of the glucocorticoid hormone synthesis inhibitor metyrapone showed that the antidepressant and anxiolytic actions of hypobaric PostC in models of poststress anxious-depressive disorders are mediated via glucocorticoid hormones.

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  1. Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    M. Y. Zenko & E. A. Rybnikova

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  1. M. Y. Zenko
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Correspondence to E. A. Rybnikova.

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Translated from Zhurnal Vysshei Nervnoi Deyatel’nosti imeni I. P. Pavlova, Vol. 70, No. 6, pp. 825–836, November–December, 2020.

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Zenko, M.Y., Rybnikova, E.A. The Role of Glucocorticoid Hormones in the Stress-Protective Effects of Hypoxic Postconditioning in Models of Depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Rats. Neurosci Behav Physi 51, 757–764 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-021-01132-z

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