Santarelli et al

In “Requirement of Hippocampal Neurogenesis for the Behavioral Effects of Antidepressants” by Santarelli et al, they explore the possible effects that antidepressants have on neurogenesis. They tested the effects of the antidepressants on mice, but because of the organization of the article, it is hard to see exactly how their methods went. Rather than a separate section for the methods, the details on what was done is spread throughout the article.

I found it interesting that they chose four different antidepressants to treat the mice with, two being tricyclic, one being an SSRI, and the fourth being and antipsychotic drug. They made it a point to test a couple of different types of drugs for anxiety and depression to compare the effects in behavior. The article did not explain why they chose fluoxetine as the drug to test the most with, though, when all three of the antidepressants they tested had similar effects. I would be interested to see how a drug that acts slightly differently, such as a tricyclic antidepressant.

            I found it particularly interesting the way they used radiation as a means of modeling the neural damage caused by anxiety and depression. From there, they could treat the mice and see what type of neurogenesis occurred compared to the control. When the article described the “correspondence” between the behavior and the neurogenesis, it is not clear whether they mean a correlation or plausible causation. The two instances of dissociation add to this confusion, though the article does explain why those may occur. The best way to find evidence for those would be to conduct another experiment that takes into account the lack of effect, and has a longer period for ablation.