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Exploring The Link Between Genetics, Chronic Stress, And Depression, Michael Woller

Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) Grant Program

Depression is a very debilitating mental illness that affects about 7% of the American Population [1] and up to about 350 million people worldwide [2]. Since the cause for depression and the reason why some individuals are more vulnerable than others are currently unclear, studying paradigms that model depression in animals, such as the learned helplessness paradigm, is useful to explore possible mechanisms and devise new treatments. To explore a possible link between genetics, chronic stress and depression, we have exposed mice vulnerable to stress to an inescapable forced swim paradigm. During the forced swim test, the mice were monitored …