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Specific creatine rise in learned helplessness induced by electroconvulsive shock treatment
Alexander Sartorius1, Barbara Vollmayr, Claudia Neumann-Haefelin
1Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany. sascha@zi-mannheim.de
Abstract:
Metabolic changes in the hippocampus formation can be investigated with in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Learned helplessness (LH) is a well validated animal model of depression which we established in Sprague-Dawley rats defining some as "learned helpless" (LH) or not "learned helpless" (NLH). Helpless and non-helpless rats received a course of daily administered electroconvulsive shocks (ECS) for 6 days. MRS measurements were performed on a 4.7 T animal scanner with an average voxel size within the rat hippocampus of 10 microl. In LH rats hippocampal creatine/NAA rose significantly (14%) whereas creatine/NAA of NLH rats showed no increase at all. A possible connection between hippocampal creatine levels and major depressive disorders as a reflection of changes in energy metabolism is discussed.