Topic: postpartum depression

Parental care is crucial for the survival and development of offspring in altricial mammalian species. While maternal behavior in postpartum females is already well understood, the neural mechanisms underlying the acquisition of maternal behavior without prior experience still remains unclear. In this project we aimed to understand and decipher the individual key mechanism underlying this ability.We could demonstrate that virgin females can rapidly develop maternal care behavior upon first-time pup exposure, and that this process is initiated by the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex

Major depressive disorder is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder which afflicts approximately 14-20% of the general population; of those individuals, approximately 30% are treatment resistant to antidepressant medications. Recently, the FDA has approved a novel antidepressant, Zuranolone for use in individuals who suffer from postpartum depression and, this drug has shown very promising results. Using 488uM thick hippocampal brain slices, local field potential (LFP) recordings were conducted and analyzed for changes in sharp wave ripple (SWR) complexes. In order to assess in-vivo changes