Peripubertal exposure of atrazine cause decrease in exploratory activity, deficits in sociability and few alterations on brain monoaminergic systems of rats.

Atrazine is a pesticide used to control weeds in both in pre- and post-emergence crops. The chronic exposure to atrazine can lead to severe damage in animals, especially in the endocrine and reproduction systems, leading to the inclusion of this pesticide into the endocrine disrupting chemicals group. Studies with rats showed that atrazine exposure during lactation in dams caused changes in the juvenile offspring, however; there is still limited information regarding the effects of atrazine during puberty.

Fluoxetine alters rat's milk properties causing impact on offspring's development.

Fluoxetine is an antidepressant used to treat several conditions including postpartum depression. This disease causes cognitive, emotional, behavioral and physical changes, negatively affecting the mother, child and family life. However, fluoxetine is excreted in breast milk, causing short and long-term effects on children who were exposed to the drug during lactation, so studies that seek to uncover the consequences of these effects are needed.

Ketamine causes poor maternal care in rats with postpartum depression and leads to few behavioral and neurochemical alterations on male offspring.

Ketamine is an anesthetic drug that also has antidepressant properties, with quick action. Despite the great number of studies showing its effectiveness as a treatment for major depression, there is little information about its effects on postpartum depression, as pharmacological treatments bring risks to the health of both mother and child. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of prolonged treatment with subanesthetic doses of ketamine in a rat model of postpartum depression.

Postpartum depression in rats causes poor maternal care and neurochemical alterations on dams and long-lasting impairment in sociability on the offspring.

Postpartum depression is a mentally disabling disease with multifactorial etiology that affects women worldwide. It can also influence child development and lead to behavioral and cognitive alterations. Despite the high prevalence, the disease is underdiagnosed and poorly studied.

Development, Optimization, and Validation of Forensic Analytical Method for Quantification of Anticholinesterase Pesticides in Biological Matrices from Suspected Cases of Animal Poisoning.

Anticholinesterase pesticides are a main cause of the intentional or accidental poisoning of animals. Anticholinesterases include several substances that cause the overstimulation of both central and peripheral acetylcholine-dependent neurotransmission. Forensic analyses of poisoning cases require high levels of expertise, are costly, and often do not provide reliable quantitative information for unambiguous conclusions.

Preclinical toxicological study of prolonged exposure to ketamine as an antidepressant.

Background: Depression is one of the most common mentally debilitating diseases in the world. Ketamine has been recently identified as a potential novel antidepressant. Further animal model evaluations of the use of ketamine as an antidepressant are necessary to determine safety parameters for clinical use.

Prolonged exposure of rats to varenicline increases anxiety and alters serotonergic system, but has no effect on memory.

Varenicline is a drug used for smoking addiction cessation treatment and acts as a partial agonist of nicotinic cholinergic receptors. Recent clinical trial data support use of varenicline for treatment of conditions/addictions that are not related to smoking cessation. Considering the importance of this issue and the need for new studies on its effects, especially on behavior, more studies using animal models are necessary.

Evaluation of Prolonged Exposure to Varenicline in Adult Rats: Haematological, Biochemical and Anatomopathological Studies.

Varenicline is a synthetic chemical substance produced from the alkaloid cytisine, used for smoking treatment, which acts as a partial agonist for α4β2 and α3β4 nicotinic cholinergic receptors and as a total agonist for α7 receptor. While there are studies regarding varenicline's non-smoking-related effects, as in treatment for drug dependence, there are no studies in the literature evaluating the long-term toxicity of varenicline through a physiological approach. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate possible toxicity through haematological, biochemical and anatomopathological parameters of prolonged exposure (30 days) to varenicline in rats.

Type 2 Deiodinase Disruption in Astrocytes Results in Anxiety-Depressive-Like Behavior in Male Mice.

Millions of levothyroxine-treated hypothyroid patients complain of impaired cognition despite normal TSH serum levels. This could reflect abnormalities in the type 2 deiodinase (D2)-mediated T4-to-T3 conversion, given their much greater dependence on the D2 pathway for T3 production. T3 normally reaches the brain directly from the circulation or is produced locally by D2 in astrocytes.