The Importance of Cognitive Phenotypes in Experimental Modeling of Animal Anxiety and Depression

[摘要] Cognitive dysfunctions are commonly seen in many stress-related disorders, includinganxiety and depression—the world's most common neuropsychiatric illnesses. Various genetic,pharmacological, and behavioral animal models have long been used to establish animal anxiety-likeand depression-like phenotypes, as well as to assess their memory, learning, and othercognitive functions. Mounting clinical and animal evidences strongly supports the notion thatdisturbed cognitions represent an important pathogenetic factor in anxiety and depression, and mayalso play a role inintegratingthe two disorders within a common stress-precipitateddevelopmental pathway. This paper evaluates why and how the assessment of cognitive andemotional domains may improve our understanding of animal behaviors via different high-throughputtests and enable a better translation of animal phenotypes into human brain disorders.

[学科分类] 精神健康和精神病学