Increasing data indicate that brain endocannabinoid system plays a role in the effects of antidepressant medications. Here we examined the effect of in vivo exposure to the selective serotonin uptake inhibitor fluoxetine on cannabinoid type 1 (CB(1)) receptor density and functionality in the rat prefrontal cortex (PFC) and cerebellum. Long-term treatment with fluoxetine (10 mg/kg/day) enhanced ...

Agmatine is an endogenous neuromodulator that has been shown to have beneficial effects in the central nervous system, including antidepressant-like effects in animals. In this study, we investigated the ability of agmatine (0.1mg/kg, p.o.) and the conventional antidepressant fluoxetine (10mg/kg, p.o.) to reverse the behavioral effects and morphological alterations in the hippocampus of mice ex...

A significant number of children undergo maternal exposure to antidepressants and they often present low birth weight. Therefore, it is important to understand how selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) affect the development of the hypothalamus, the key center for metabolism regulation. In this study we investigated the proliferative actions of fluoxetine in fetal hypothalamic neuropr...

The antistress effect of a polyherbal formulation-OB-200G (500 mg/kg. p.o.) was studied in both male and female mice subjected to forced swim stress. Fluoxetine (10 mg/kg, i.p.) was chosen as standard drug for comparison. Exposure of mice to chronic stress regime resulted in decreased body weight in both male and female mice, increased sweetened food intake, anxiety, depression and locomotor ac...

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is emerging as a promising model organism for experimental studies of stress and anxiety. Here we further validate zebrafish models of stress by analyzing how environmental and pharmacological manipulations affect their behavioral and physiological phenotypes. Experimental manipulations included exposure to alarm pheromone, chronic exposure to fluoxetine, acute expos...

Occupational exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients can cause adverse health effects, particularly in personnel working with potent compounds such as steroids or those with the capacity to cause cumulative damage, such as antineoplastic drugs and antibiotics (1). Although omeprazole and other proton pump inhibitors are potentially sensitizing, occupationally acquired cases are rare (2, 3...

This study was designed to study potentiation of fluoxetine's antidepressant effect by curcumin or pindolol. Twenty eight groups of mice (n=8) were used in three sets of experiments. In the first set, 9 groups were subjected to the forced swimming test after being treated intraperitoneally with three vehicles, fluoxetine (5 and 20 mg/kg), curcumin (20 mg/kg), pindolol (32 mg/kg), curcumin+fluox...

Both genetic background and pre-existing stress play critical roles in the effects of antidepressant drugs. The current studies showed this principal by demonstrating that exposure to the stress hormone corticosterone (CORT) allowed behavioral and neurogenic effects to emerge following chronic treatment with fluoxetine of C57BL/6 mice, a strain ordinarily resistant to these effects. Adult male ...

The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) Prozac® (fluoxetine) is the only registered antidepressant to treat depression in children and adolescents. Yet, while the safety of SSRIs has been well established in adults, serotonin exerts neurotrophic actions in the developing brain and thereby may have harmful effects in adolescents. Here we treated adolescent and adult rats chronically wi...