Artigo de opinião publicado no jornal "Público", Domingo, 4 de Junho de 2023.; [Excerto] O Estatuto de Carreira de Investigação Científica foi publicado há 24 anos, com o intuito de promover investigação de qualidade e reforçar as instituições com pessoal altamente qualificado e integrado. Parece-nos, no entanto, óbvio que o sistema científico tem falhado numa componente essencial: condições estáveis para se fa...
Relatório elaborado pela Comissão Especializada de Educação, Investigação e Interação com a Sociedade (CEEIIS); [Sumário executivo] Mais de vinte anos passados sobre a publicação do Estatuto da Carreira de Investigação Científica é natural que a comunidade Académica se interrogue sobre as suas limitações e eventual necessidade de adaptação à realidade atual. Também na Universidade do Minho o muito significativo...
Depression is a prevalent, socially burdensome disease. Different studies have demonstrated the important role of astrocytes in the pathophysiology of depression as modulators of neurotransmission and neurovascular coupling. This is evidenced by astrocyte impairments observed in brains of depressed patients and the appearance of depressive-like behaviors upon astrocytic dysfunctions in animal models. However, l...
Objectives: Life events have important effects on psychological well-being. Yet, studies have mainly focused on exploring the impact of traumatic and negative experiences on health and well-being, with positive events receiving marginal attention. In this study, we investigated the association between negative and positive life events, cognitive performance and psychological status in older individuals. Method:...
Gene expression alterations occurring with aging have been described for a multitude of species, organs, and cell types. However, most of the underlying studies rely on static comparisons of mean gene expression levels between age groups and do not account for the dynamics of gene expression throughout the lifespan. These studies also tend to disregard the pairwise relationships between gene expression profiles...
Changes in adult hippocampal cell proliferation and genesis have been largely implicated in depression and antidepressant action, though surprisingly, the underlying cell cycle mechanisms are largely undisclosed. Using both an <i>in vivo</i> unpredictable chronic mild stress (uCMS) rat model of depression and <i>in vitro</i> rat hippocampal-derived neurosphere culture approaches, we aimed to unravel the cell cy...
The transcription factor activating protein two gamma (AP2γ) is an important regulator of neurogenesis both during embryonic development as well as in the postnatal brain, but its role for neurophysiology and behavior at distinct postnatal periods is still unclear. In this work, we explored the neurogenic, behavioral, and functional impact of a constitutive and heterozygous AP2γ deletion in mice from early post...
Dental anxiety (DA) and hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) are associated with psychological symptoms and vary during pregnancy. We aimed to examine the association between HCC and DA at two points of pregnancy. Participants were pregnant mothers (n = 533) drawn from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study donating a hair sample at gestational week (gwk) 24 (n = 442) and/or at delivery (n = 176) and completed question...
Prenatal exposure to stress or glucocorticoids (GC) is associated with the appearance of psychiatric diseases later in life. Microglia, the immune cells of the brain, are altered in stress-related disorders. Synthetic GC such as dexamethasone (DEX) are commonly prescribed in case of preterm risk labour in order to promote fetal lung maturation. Recently, we reported long-lasting differences in microglia morphol...
Deficits in decoding rewarding (and aversive) signals are present in several neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression and addiction, emphasising the importance of studying the underlying neural circuits in detail. One of the key regions of the reward circuit is the nucleus accumbens (NAc). The classical view on the field postulates that NAc dopamine receptor D1-expressing medium spiny neurons (D1-MSNs) co...