Week 2

These article are not as easily critiqued compared to last weeks papers. Besides the fact that they are shorter and a bit easier to manage, I find both articles to be thoughtful and well composed. Its incredibly interesting that through two different methods, they produce rather contradictory results to relatively the same question. Both Tye and Chaudhury attempt to understand and identify the link between the dopamine VTA neurons and depressive-like behavior. However where Tye produces evidence of selective inhibition of the VTA-DA neurons leads to increase in depressive symptoms, Chaudhury finds that selective stimulation of the VTA-DA neuron leads to depressive symptoms.

I have been trying to understand how these differing results would arrive by examining the difference between them. The Chaudhury model of depression relies on the Social Defeat Paradigm vs the Tye model uses Chronic Mild Stress to induce depression. I believe CMS to be validated animal model of depression, but Chaudhury also offers convincing use of the SDP in other papers as well. I do like Chaudhury's use of susceptible vs resilient mice, as he labels them by their behavioral patterns, rather than their transgenic identities, or their measured exposure to stress. This makes their immediate change in phenotype when stimulated with phasic firing, a much more compelling change than when a chronically stressed mouse regains its normal function.