A Molecule on the Road to Depression (3 of 4) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

A Molecule on the Road to Depression (3 of 4)

Caption

This image shows a happy and a depressed mouse, whose emotional states are determined by a protein, βCaMKII, in a brain region called the lateral habenula (in green). Mice in which the βCaMKII protein was engineered to be expressed at higher levels experienced anhedonia, or loss of interest, in sucrose -- a substance rodents typically like. Control mice, meanwhile, showed the expected interest in the sugar water solution. The background floor is a coronal section of the mouse brain, derived from the Atlas-Brain Explorer 2 software. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the 30 Aug., 2013, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Kun Li at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, China, and colleagues was titled, "βCaMKII in Lateral Habenula Mediates Core Symptoms of Depression."

Credit

[Image courtesy of Tao Zhou and Hailan Hu]

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