nucleus accumbens, to see if there were differences in mitochondrial function and/or how the cells developed. They found both. The anxious/depressed rats had fewer mitochondria per cell, as well as differences in the way their mitochondria used oxygen to turn energy into ATP and in how mitochondria interacted with another organelle, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The neurons themselves also looked different. Following the trail further, the researchers found that the mitochondria from these rats had lower levels of mitofusin-2 (MFN2), a protein on mitochondrial membranes important to their
...more
