Offspring's own serotonin transporter genotype, independently from the maternal one, increases anxiety- and depression-like behavior and alters neuroplasticity markers in rats.

Introduction: Developmental changes due to early life variations in the serotonin system affect stress-related behavior and neuroplasticity in adulthood. These outcomes can be caused both by offspring's own and maternal serotonergic genotype. We aimed to dissociate the contribution of the own genotype from the influences of mother genotype.

To be or not to be pink(1): contradictory findings in an animal model for Parkinson's disease.

The PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 knockout rat (Pink1) is marketed as an established model for Parkinson's disease, characterized by development of motor deficits and progressive degeneration of half the dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra by 8 months of age. In this study, we address our concerns about the reproducibility of the Pink1 rat model. We evaluated behavioural function, number of substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons and extracellular striatal dopamine concentrations by microdialysis.