Anxiety behaviour and inflammatory markers in c57/bl6j mice are enhanced after a chronic dose of DSS colitis during contextual fear conditioning

Abstract

This thesis describes how induced gut inflammation induces brain inflammation via the brain-gut axis. It further shows that mice with elevated gut inflammation display post-shock behavioural correlates of anxiety for longer duration than mice that do not have gut inflammation. The gut-inflamed mice also show a reduced ability to recover from fearful experiences and higher relative quantities of inflammatory markers in the nucleus accumbens. Mice receiving both gut inflammation and psilocybin show reduced anxiety behaviour and lower relative quantities of inflammatory markers in the nucleus accumbens. This thesis demonstrates that induced gut inflammation drives increased inflammation in the nucleus accumbens and results in increased measures of anxiety in conditioned and unconditioned behavioural tasks. Some outcomes were ameliorated by the addition of a single dose of psilocybin. Overall, these data improve understanding of potential mechanisms by which anxiety may be produced and treated. Research was completed under protocol number 2018.