Area of research
Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism · Pathology and Forensic Medicine
Research interest
Research topics from publications: Gene deficiency and pharmacological inhibition of caspase-1 confers resilience to chronic social defeat stress via regulating the stability of surface AMPARs. Representative work: Both inflammatory processes and glutamatergic systems have been implicated in the pathophysiology of mood-related disorders. However, the role of caspase-1, a classic inflammatory caspase, in behavioral responses to chronic stress remains largely unknown. To address this issue, we examined the effects and underlying mechanisms of caspase-1 on preclinical murine models of depression. We found that loss of caspase-1 expression in Caspase-1−/− knockout mice alleviated chronic stress-induced depression-like behaviors, whereas overexpression of caspase-1 in the hippocampus of wild-type (WT) mice was sufficient to induce depression- and anxiety-like behaviors. Furthermore, chronic stress reduced g