Fig. 3: Lack of antidepressant and neurogenic effects of pyruvate in the corticosterone model of depression.

a Timeline showing the experimental design for measuring neural progenitor cells (NPCs) proliferation. Mice received a single subcutaneous injection of corticosterone (20 mg/kg) or vehicle (2% DMSO in sesame oil) on each of 21 consecutive days. Together with corticosterone treatment, mice received intraperitoneal injections of vehicle (0.9% NaCl) or pyruvate (1 g/kg) daily for 21 days. On the last day of treatment, mice also received BrdU injections. b Confocal maximal projection micrographs of hippocampal sections immunostained for BrdU. Inset: Higher magnification confocal micrograph of a BrdU-immunolabeled group of cells. c Analysis of NPCs proliferation. Histogram of the number of BrdU⁺ cells in the granule cell layer of the dentate gyrus. d Assessment of depressive-like behavior in FST. Histogram of the time spent immobile during FST. e Timeline showing the experimental design for measuring NPCs survival. BrdU administration was performed the day before the start of the treatment. Then, mice received a single subcutaneous injection of corticosterone (20 mg/kg) or vehicle (2% DMSO in sesame oil) on each of 14 consecutive days. Together with corticosterone treatment, mice received intraperitoneal injections of vehicle (0.9% NaCl) or pyruvate (1 g/kg) daily for 14 days. f Analysis of NPCs survival. Histogram of the number of BrdU⁺ cells in the granule cell layer of the dentate gyrus. Data are the mean ± SEM. One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post-hoc test ((c), (d): n > 10/condition; (f): n = 4/condition). *p < 0.05.