Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate how fluvoxamine maleate treatment regulates depressive-like symptoms, motor impairments and the expressions of IL-1beta, IL-6, IL-10 , TGF-beta and TNF-alpha cytokines in the striatum of a stressed Parkinsonian rat model.

Background: Cytokines dysfunction is associated with both depression and Parkinson’s disease (PD) pathophysiology. Inflammatory cytokines in neural and behavioral processes are involved in the production and/or maintenance of depression in PD. 

Methods: Early maternal separation was used to model stress and depressive-like symptoms in rats. Maternally separated adult rats were treated with fluvoxamine for 30 days prior 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) lesion. The sucrose preference test (SPT) and the limb-use asymmetry test (cylinder test) were used to evaluate anhedonia and motor impairments respectively. Lipid peroxidation and cytokine expression were measured in striatal tissue using ELISA and real-time PCR techniques respectively.

Results: We found that maternal separtion resulted in anhedonia and exacerbated 6-OHDA lesion but fluvoxamine treatment attenuated these effects. Lipid peroxidation, mRNA levels of IL-1beta, IL-6 and TNF-alpha were down-regulated while IL-10 and TGF-beta levels were up-regulated in the lesioned striatum of  fluvoxamine-treated rats 

Conclusions: This study shows that early treatment with fluvoxamine may attenuate  inflammation on injured striatal neurons by favoring anti-inflammatory cytokine expression while decreasing pro-inflammatory cytokine release in the brain. This suggests a role of fluvoxamine as a potential therapeutic intervention targeting neuronal inflammation associated with PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/fluvoxamine-maleate-normalizes-striatal-neuronal-inflammatory-cytokine-activity-in-a-parkinsonian-rat-model-associated-with-depression/