From left: Dr. Olivia O'Leary, Dr. Daniela Felice & Prof. John F. Cryan
Why on the rollercoaster of life are some people more resilient to the negative effects of stress than others?
Now University College Cork neuroscientists show that certain receptors in the brain play an important role in determining how we respond to different types of stress. Their research is being published today in the prestigious international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
Scientists based at the Dept of Anatomy & Neuroscience and the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in University College Cork, Cork, Ireland have identified a novel molecular mechanism that determines how the brain responds to chronic stress. Prof John Cryan and Dr Olivia O’Leary, together with their PhD student Daniela Felice and their colleagues have shown that different subtypes of a given receptor (the GABAB receptor) can confer vulnerability to stress (both in early-life and in adulthood).
Dr O’Leary says “although it is early days, these data show that these receptors could be important targets for the development of new drugs in the treatment of depression, where there is still such an unmet medical need”. Indeed, Prof Cryan says that “understanding the molecular factors that enable the brain to be stress resilient is one of the most exciting areas in neuroscience research currently and these data position the GABAB receptor at the heart of such efforts”, “we still have some way to go to translate these findings into humans but we are very excited by these data“ Cryan continued.
View Research paper here GABAB(1) receptor subunit isoforms differentially regulate stress resilience
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