Treatment of male rats with finasteride, an inhibitor of 5alpha-reductase enzyme, induces long-lasting effects on depressive-like behavior, hippocampal neurogenesis, neuroinflammation and gut microbiota composition
Silvia Diviccaro; Silvia Giatti; Francesca Borgo; Matteo Barcella; Elisa Borghi; José Luis Trejo; Luis Miguel Garcia-Segura; Roberto Cosimo Melcangi
Psychoneuroendocrinology2019
Summary (paraphrased)
Male Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with finasteride for 20 days and then followed for one month after withdrawal. At the end of treatment, the dentate gyrus showed more proliferating progenitor cells and higher hippocampal TNF-alpha mRNA, indicating an acute inflammatory-proliferative shift. One month after the drug was stopped, the picture had reversed and worsened: the animals displayed depressive-like behavior, fewer proliferating cells, reduced granule-cell density, and more reactive astrocytes in the dentate gyrus. The gut microbiota was also altered, with different bacterial families enriched at the end of treatment versus at the end of the withdrawal period. Because the behavioral, neurogenic, inflammatory, and microbial changes persisted a full month after the last dose, the work provides one of the closest animal models of the persistence phenomenon seen in post-finasteride patients.
Why it’s in the corpus
Directly addresses the core persistence question of the corpus: finasteride-induced brain and microbiome changes outlasting drug exposure by weeks. Bridges the neurosteroid, neuroinflammation, and gut-brain axes in a single controlled experiment.
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