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Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) is an effective treatment for symptoms associated with climacteric and depression some women experience during perimenopause and menopause. The antidepressant-like effects of ERT may depend on the type of estrogen, age, and time when restitution is initiated after hormonal decline. Prolame is a synthetic steroid with estrogenic and antidepressant-like effects that may produce fewer adverse effects. We hypothesize that such actions of prolame on females depend on age and the duration of hormone deprivation period. We assessed the antidepressant-like effects of 17β-estradiol (E

Resumen La testosterona es una hormona esteroide sintetizada a partir del colesterol en las celulas de Leydig de los testiculos, y en menor concentracion en las celulas de la teca del ovario y en la zona reticular de las glandulas suprarrenales. La testosterona interviene en la diferenciacion testicular, cerebral y en el desarrollo de los caracteres sexuales primarios y secundarios. Ademas, modula la expresion de algunos comportamientos y rasgos de la personalidad, principalmente los relacionados con el mantenimiento del estatus social y con la reproduccion. Por ejemplo, altas concentraciones de testosterona estan asociadas con una mayor agresividad, competitividad, dominancia, libido sexual, busqueda de pareja, entre otras. No obstante, la testosterona tambien ha sido asociada con algunos padecimientos relacionados con la salud mental, entre los que se encuentran los trastornos del estado de animo (ansiedad, depresion y trastorno bipolar), psicoticos (esquizofrenia) y trastornos de la personalidad. El objetivo del presente estudio fue realizar una revision exhaustiva acerca de las principales investigaciones al respecto y ofrecer un panorama general sobre el papel de la testosterona en la incidencia de estos trastornos.

It has been suggested that old depressed patients require longer antidepressant treatments than their young counterparts. The objective of this study was to establish if aging impairs the response to an antidepressant by using an animal model. For this purpose, young and middle-aged male Wistar rats (of around 4 and 14months, respectively) were exposed to a chronic mild stress schedule for 3weeks. After this period, the animals that developed anhedonia, reflected as a reduction in sucrose solution (1%) intake, were treated with citalopram (10mg/kg/day) during 21days while still maintained under the chronic mild stress schedule. Non-stressed animals were included as controls. In young rats citalopram reversed the reduction in sucrose consumption induced by chronic mild stress after one week of treatment, while in middle-aged animals a similar reversion occurred after three weeks. Citalopram did not importantly modify simple water intake in stressed animals or sucrose consumption in non-stressed rats of both ages. The results imply that young rats have a lower latency of onset to the antidepressant-like effect of citalopram than middle-aged animals. The lower sensitivity of middle-aged animals to citalopram could be underlied by their lower levels of gonadal hormones.