Cited by 122Treatment of Major DepressionNeuroscience and Neuropharmacology ResearchNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

Rapid Antidepressant Action and Restoration of Excitatory Synaptic Strength After Chronic Stress by Negative Modulators of Alpha5-Containing GABAA Receptors

Open access
Fischell, Jonathan, Van Dyke, Adam M, Kvarta, Mark D, LeGates, Tara A, Thompson, Scott M·2015·Neuropsychopharmacology

Abstract

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the primary pharmacological treatment for depression, but SSRIs are effective in only half of the patients and typically take several weeks to relieve symptoms. The NMDA receptor antagonist ketamine exerts a rapid antidepressant action, but has troubling side effects. We hypothesized that negative allosteric modulators of GABAA receptors would exert similar effects on brain activity as ketamine, but would not exert as many side effects if targeted only to GABAA receptors containing α5 subunits, which are enriched in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Here, we show that the α5-selective negative modulator L-655,708 reversed the alterations in hedonic behavior in the sucrose preference and social interaction tests produced by two different chronic stress paradigms in rats within 24 h of systemic administration. Similar effects were observed with another α5-selective negative modulator, MRK-016. L-655,708 had no effect on hedonic or open-field behavior in unstressed animals. Within 24 h, L-655,708 injection also restored the strength of pathologically weakened excitatory synaptic transmission at the stress-sensitive temporoammonic-CA1 synapse, measured electrophysiologically, and increased levels of the GluA1 subunit of the AMPA receptor, measured with western blotting. We suggest that the ability of L-655,708 to restore excitatory synaptic strength rapidly may underlie its ability to restore stress-induced behavioral alterations rapidly, supporting evidence that dysfunction of multiple excitatory synapses in cortico-mesolimbic reward pathways contributes, in part, to the genesis of depression. Negative allosteric modulators of α5 subunit-containing GABAA receptors represent a promising novel class of fast-acting and clinically viable antidepressant compounds.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/npp.2015.112

Cites

65 of 65 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Subsequent preclinical experiments supported the hypothesis that negative allosteric modulators of GABA A receptors containing alpha5 subunits would produce a ketamine-like rapid antidepressant response.

    “Subsequent preclinical experiments supported this hypothesis [152,273].”
  • α5GABAARs have been implicated in anxiety, fear and/or response to chronic stress.

    “In addition, γ2GABAARs [11], α1GABAARs [10, 12], α3GABAARs [13] (but see [14-16] for contradictory findings), and more recently, α5GABAARs [16-18, 4] have been implicated in anxiety, fear and/or response to chronic stress.”

    From An emerging circuit pharmacology of GABAA receptors (2018) · cites this paper as [17]

  • Both positive and negative allosteric modulation of α5GABAARs produces rapid antidepressant-like effects and/or reductions in stress-related behaviors in rodents exposed to chronic stress.

    “Interestingly, both positive and negative allosteric modulation of α5GABAARs produces rapid antidepressant-like effects and/or reductions in stress-related behaviors in rodents exposed to chronic stress [17, 18, 140, 141].”

    From An emerging circuit pharmacology of GABAA receptors (2018) · cites this paper as [17]

  • Administration of partial inverse agonists at the benzodiazepine binding site of alpha5-containing GABAA receptors promotes coherent network activity via disinhibition of excitatory neurotransmission and exerts rapid antidepressant actions in several animal tests.

    “Further supporting this hypothesis, administration of partial inverse agonists at the benzodiazepine binding site of alpha5-containing GABAA receptors, which are selectively expressed in the forebrain, including prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, promote coherent network activity via disinhibition of excitatory neurotransmission 45 and exert rapid antidepressant actions in several animal tests 46–”

    From Mechanisms of ketamine action as an antidepressant (2018) · cites this paper as [46]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Fischell, J., Van Dyke, A. M., Kvarta, M. D., LeGates, T. A., & Thompson, S. M.
Affiliations
University of Maryland, Baltimore (US)
Corresponding author
Thompson, Scott M
Venue
Neuropsychopharmacology
Published
2015-04-22
Volume
40
Issue
11
Pages
2499-2509
ISSN
  • 0893-133X (ISSN-L)
  • 1740-634X
OpenAlex
W2056406527
Cited by
122
References
65
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 1
FWCI
9.38
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Neuropsychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (2t32ns063391-21)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH086828)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM008181)
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (T32NS007375, T32-NS063391)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
alpha5 GABA-A receptor, negative allosteric modulators, chronic stress, depression, excitatory synaptic transmission, hedonic behavior, sucrose preference, social interaction, ketamine, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex
MeSH terms
Animals, Antidepressive Agents, Chronic Disease, Disease Models, Animal, Exploratory Behavior, Feeding Behavior, Imidazoles, Isoxazoles, Male, Synaptic Transmission, Random Allocation, Receptors, GABA-A, Restraint, Physical, Social Behavior, Stress, Psychological, Synapses, Triazines, Rats, Sprague-Dawley, Receptors, AMPA, GABA Modulators, Dietary Sucrose, Tissue Culture Techniques, CA1 Region, Hippocampal

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review