Project Summary

Maria Danet S. Lapiz, Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2006) of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, will conduct an animal model study of cognitive dysfunction in depression. Increasing evidence suggests an association between exposure to negative, stressful life-events and the development of depression. Depressed patients exhibit cognitive and memory biases for certain emotional material that may contribute to distortion of information processing and retrieval, resulting in reduced motivation and overall cognitive capacity and difficulty in shifting attention from one affective category (sad) to another (happy). Dr. Lapiz will address possible neural mechanisms underlying cognitive dysfunction in depression by stressing animals and measuring their responses to an attentional set shift test, a model for cognitive dysfunction in depression. Further, Dr. Lapiz will address regulatory mechanisms underlying the beneficial cognitive effects of chronic antidepressant drug treatment. Many previous animal models of depression fail to demonstrate specific cognitive dysfunction, or fail to show resolution of cognitive dysfunction with chronic antidepressant treatment.

Program Area: MOOD DISORDERS\Unipolar

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