BACKGROUND: Indirect evidence suggests that loss of brain-derived neurotrophic factor
(BDNF) from forebrain regions contributes to an individual's vulnerability for depression,
whereas upregulation of BDNF in these regions is suggested to mediate the therapeutic
effect of antidepressants. METHODS: We have tested this hypothesis by generating two
independent lines of conditional BDNF knockout mice in which the BDNF gene is deleted
selectively in forebrain. RESULTS: We show that male conditional knockouts exhibit …