Recent studies demonstrate the importance of adult hippocampal neurogenesis for the action of antidepressants

As in another mouse study and in human endometrium, the data point tendentially towards cyclic Il18 expression. A similar scenario with ambiguous results from human endometrial biopsies was found for CXCL12. Interestingly, Laird et al. describe a CXCL12 mRNA expression pattern in human endometrium that appears to be comparable to the one seen in the overtly bleeding mice. Concerning the Tgfb cytokine family, which is important for the induction of wound healing, we observed partial correlation of our data with human data: TGFB1 mRNA is increased during the menstrual phase in humans, corresponding to the expression pattern observed in this study. In contrast, average TGFB3 mRNA levels were reported to be increased 3-fold from the human secretory to the menstrual phase, but were fairly constant in our study. In principle, when translating gene expression, histology, and bleeding data from mice to women or vice versa one must consider that human endometrial biopsies are taken over a period of days and not at a clearly defined point in time as was the case in this study. Our data demonstrate that the decidualized endometrium is a highly dynamic tissue in which processes such as tissue destruction and repair proceed in parallel. Accordingly, it must be expected that changes occur within a very short time frame in humans as well, especially during menstruation. The exact time at which tissue is collected will therefore determine the results obtained and is decisive for the transferability of data from mouse to man. In conclusion, the comparison of Loganin overtly bleeding mice and human data for menstruation indicates a very strong correlation, not only in terms of morphology and hormones but also regarding the common regulation of marker genes, thus indicating comparable underlying processes. Since intact pseudopregnant mice convincingly mimic human menstruation, it is expected that the further use of these mice will contribute to a better understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms accompanying menstruation. Moreover, they will be a valuable tool for pharmacologic testing. A diverse set of interventions, in addition to drugs, is known to have antidepressant action, including cognitive and electroconvulsive therapies, sleep deprivation, and exercise. Mechanistic understanding of what is common to environmental and drug treatments may provide valuable clues about the mode and site of action of antidepressants. Recent studies demonstrate Cinnamaldehyde the importance of adult hippocampal neurogenesis for the action of antidepressants. Both exercise and enriched environment have also been found to increase hippocampal neurogenesis and cause antidepressant-like behavioral change. Chronic exercise reduces depressive-like behavior in rats and mice, as measured in standard models of depression such as the forced swim test. Environmental enrichment has similar consequences and both produce notably similar effects on the brain in stimulating cell proliferation and recruitment of new neurons into the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Currently no molecular pathway is known that is common to these treatments. The finding that gene expression data show structured correlation, together with the development of weighted gene co-expression network analysis, provide a system-level approach for using gene expression to detect the common mechanisms of different interventions. WGCNA organizes genes into modules that are co-regulated and therefore are more likely to be functionally related and to participate in similar cellular processes. WGCNA also alleviates the multiple testing problem inherent in testing tens of thousands of transcripts, a problem that otherwise substantially reduces the power of standard differential expression analysis.