Postpartum depression animal model in mice and effect of Yuejuganmaidazaotang on PPD model / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Aim To establish a postpartum depression animal model,assess the abnormal maternal behaviors of depressive dams,and observe the rapid antidepres-sant effects of the Yuejuganmaidazaotang (YG)on the PPD model.Methods Thirty-two female Balb /c were randomly assigned to two groups,the control group (Control,con)and the pre-pregnancy stressed group (Vehicle,veh),and vehicle was subjected to 3 weeks chronic restraint stress.After the last stressor,the pre-pregnancy stressed group was housed with a male.Af-ter about 4 weeks later,the mice gave birth to pups. Then at 3 weeks postpartum,we tested the maternal depressive-like behaviors,including sucrose preference test,forced swimming test and novelty suppressed feeding test.Both YG and Ketamine were single ad-ministered 24 hours before behavior test,with single saline for control group and PPD model group.Results After 3 weeks postpartum,the vehicle mice showed depression-like behaviors.Reduced preference in drinking sucrose solution was found in SPT (P <0.01 ).Immobility in FST was significantly increased in vehicle groups (P <0.01 ).In NSFT,the vehicle group displayed a significantly increased latency and reduced unit of food intake compared with control group(P <0.01,P <0.01 ).Acute YG improved per-formance in the SPT(P <0.01),FST (P <0.01)and NSF (P <0.01,P <0.01),which was similar to ket-amine.Conclusions Chronic pre-pregnancy stress can induce dams into postpartum depression.Acute YG exert fast antidepressant effect on this PPD model simi-lar to ketamine.