The ability to modify mice genetically has been one of the major breakthroughs in modern
medical science affecting every discipline including psychiatry. It is hoped that the …

Depression, a complex psychiatric disorder that affects∼ 15% of the population, has an
enormous social cost. Although the disorder is thought to be the outcome of gene …

In order to develop a model for a depression-like syndrome in mice, we subjected male
C57BL/6 mice to a 4-week-long chronic stress procedure, consisting of rat exposure …

Depression in humans is associated with sleep abnormalities of three types: altered rapid
eye movement (REM) sleep, fragmented sleep, and reduced delta sleep. In an animal model …

Chronic low grade stress predispose to psychopathological disorders. We consistently
showed that chronic ultra-mild stress (CUMS) applied to B6D2F1 female mice induced …

Social support is known to have a positive influence on mental and physical health, but
surprisingly the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie these effects have hardly been …

The aim of this thesis was to explore the effects of social housing on chronic stress exposure
in male and female rats. We used chronic footshock stress as a model for affective disorders …