Early Blood Profile of C57BL/6 Mice Exposed to Chronic Unpredictable Stress

This study demonstrates that CUS leads to early and clinically relevant blood profile and biochemical changes in C57BL/6 mice that are readily detected in live animals following 10 days of CUS. While behavioral assessments are often employed to determine the impact of CUS on depressive and anxious response, interpretation of results can be challenging due to strain-specific responses (26), and these changes can take 4–8 weeks to manifest (18), particularly in C57BL/6 mice. In this study, stress response was verified based on corticosterone levels, wherein we demonstrate an acute elevation in corticosterone following exposure to a single stressor and decreased corticosterone response to stress following 10 days of CUS procedures. CUS cohort animals also exhibited neutropenia, lymphocytopenia, as well as a mild decrease in monocyte count and increased variance in NLR, demonstrating immune impacts resulting from chronic stress. Increased NLR (24, 27) and mild anemia have been reported in patient populations as a result of chronic stress or chronic inflammation (28, 29). Also consistent with our findings, a stress-induced decrease in monocytes and T cells in humans has been reported (30). However, other studies have demonstrated elevated monocyte levels in the blood of chronically stressed humans and increased contribution of inflammatory cell populations from bone marrow resulting from chronic stress in mice (3). While our study did not demonstrate these changes in the bl...
Source: Frontiers in Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research