Séminaire de Jacques Barik

Friday November 24, 2023, at 14:30, at INT Henri Gastaut meeting room

Jacques Barik (Institut de Pharmacologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, Sophia Antipolis) invited by Maxime Cazorla

The Reward System under Stress: Insights into the Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Depression

Abstract: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of disability adjusted life years worldwide, and has significant impact on psychological well-being and on health systems. MDD is comorbid with several other psychiatric conditions and a large spectrum of somatic disorders. Patients with MDD exhibit impairments across multiple facets of reward processing encompassing responding to natural hedonic stimuli such as food and social interactions. These dysregulations can be modelled in mice exposed to chronic social stress, which allows to recapitulate key behavioral features that are reminiscent of human depression in both males and females. The cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie depression still remain unclear. I will present data that reveal some persistent adaptations within the reward system in both mice and men.