Project Summary

Paresh D. Patel, M.D., Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2007) of the University of Michigan Medical Center, is conducting research that seeks to clarify the role of the neurotransmitter serotonin in complex behaviors, including mood and anxiety disorders. He will use novel transgenic female mice with decreased, but not absent, activity in an allele of a gene called TPH2 that has been implicated in treatment of refractory depression. Seeking to explore the relation of chronic low serotonin levels on anxiety and despair, he will work under the hypothesis that TPH2 plays a key role in governing emotional reactivity. He aims to discover if mice with low TPH2 activity will lack the "tolerance promoting" effect of serotonin, and will exhibit greater stress corticosterone secretion as well as greater anxiety/despair following acute stress.

Program Area: MULTIPLE FOCUS\Anxiety Disorders/Mood Disorders

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