Topic: activin

Stress during adolescence is a known risk factor for neuropsychiatric disorders later in life, but how different factors alter the susceptibility to lasting cognitive or affective impairment is only partially understood. Here, we asked whether activin, a member of the TGF-β family, has a role in this process, the rationale being that activin affects the neural underpinnings of cognitive performance and affective behavior in the adult brain. We combined a mouse model of adolescent stress (corticosterone between postnatal days 30-45) with a transgenic mouse line expressing a dominant-negative mu

Excessive alcohol consumption during adolescence is regarded as a risk factor for the development of alcoholism later in life, but the pathophysiological mechanisms that render the adult brain susceptible to alcohol are largely unknown. GABAA receptors are among the targets of alcohol to regulate neural activity in the brain. Work from our lab has demonstrated that activin, a member of the TGF-β family, controls alcohol potentiation of GABAA receptors in adult mouse dorsal hippocampus. Considering the well-known functional segregation along the hippocampal longitudinal axis, we examined here h