Tye et al.

Coming from a non-science background, and having not had much experience reading primary source papers I found these two articles harder to read this week and I found myself having to do further in-depth research for myself to be able to understand many of the pathways in the context of the papers.

In Tye et al. they investigated the causal contributions of defined dopamine neurons to multi-dimensional depression-like phenotypes induced by chronic mild stress. I found the use of optogenetics extremely interesting in this article as it managed to show a causal relationship between VTA dopamine neurons and modulation of depression-like behaviors; showed by escape related behaviors and sucrose preference. The bidirectional way in which dopamine neurons can be used to excite or inhibit the depression-like behaviors was very interesting, as previous papers we have just read investigated ways in which antidepressants had an effect in relieving behaviors, not ways in which specified neurons could initiate depressive behaviors.

I thought that the article was a good opening into the different ways that dopamine neurons can be revolutionary in depression, especially the bidirectional inhibition or relieving of symptoms that were showed, however, I think the article is only good as a base to future further research needed. There were numerous methods described but the article came across to me as a bit crammed together and brief in descriptions of each method and findings, making it quite complex to read. I would like to see further investigation in looking into long term, more in depth relationships between defined dopamine neurons and depression-like phenotypes, as depression, especially when relating to stress as we have seen in all articles we have read now is a chronic problem that requires long term care. However, I am not saying that the results of this article weren’t convincing as I thought they were, but I feel more is needed in the future to understand the difficulty of depression.