OBJECTIVE: Accumulating evidences suggest that pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) play a role in the pathophysiology of depression. In the learned helplessness (LH) paradigm, ~35% rats are resilient to inescapable stress. METHODS: Levels of IL-6 in the serum and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of LH rats (susceptible) and non-LH rats (resilience) were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and western blot analysis, respectively. RESULTS: Serum levels of IL-6 in the LH rats were significantly higher than those of control and non-LH rats. In contrast, tissue levels of IL-6 in the mPFC were not different among three groups. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that peripheral IL-6 may contribute to resilience versus susceptibility to inescapable stress.
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Yang et al. (2015) studied this question.
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