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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurosci.

Sec. Translational Neuroscience

Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1547551

Photochemically induced thrombosis combined with chronic restraint stress for modeling post-stroke depression in mice

Provisionally accepted
  • Affiliated Hospital, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Post-stroke depression (PSD) is a prevalent and debilitating neuropsychiatric condition that BDNF levelsimpacts recovery in stroke survivors. This study aimed to establish a novel animal model of PSD by combining photochemically induced thrombosis (PIT) with chronic restraint stress (CRS) in mice. Mice underwent PIT to induce focal ischemic brain injury in the parietal lobe, followed by CRS to mimic the psychological stress during stroke recovery. Results revealed that the PIT model resulted in reproducible ischemic damage, with an average infarct area of 2.580 ± 0.426% in the parietal lobe. Mice subjected to PIT-CRS exhibited significant depressive-like behaviors, as evidenced by reduced sucrose preference (p < 0.001), increased immobility time in the forced swim test (p = 0.056), and prolonged immobility in the tail suspension test (p = 0.168) compared to the Sham group. Moreover, significant down-regulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) (p = 0.004) and synaptophysin (SYP) (p = 0.074) levels, and up-regulation of interleukin-1 (IL-1) (p = 0.024) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (p = 0.368) levels in the PIT-CRS group compared to the Sham group. These findings indicate that the PIT-CRS model effectively replicates the key characteristics of PSD, providing a platform for exploring pathophysiological mechanisms in the development of PSD.

    Keywords: photochemically induced thrombosis, Chronic restraint stress, strok, Depression, mice model

    Received: 19 Dec 2024; Accepted: 17 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Tuersunjiang, Wang, Zhengzheng, Gao and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Zhengchun Wang, Affiliated Hospital, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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