PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Junhui Zou AU - Wenbin Wang AU - Yung-Wei Pan AU - Glen M. Abel AU - Daniel R. Storm AU - Zhengui Xia TI - Conditional Inhibition of Adult Neurogenesis by Inducible and Targeted Deletion of ERK5 MAP Kinase Is Not Associated with Anxiety/Depression-Like Behaviors AID - 10.1523/ENEURO.0014-14.2015 DP - 2015 Mar 01 TA - eneuro PG - ENEURO.0014-14.2015 VI - 2 IP - 2 4099 - http://www.eneuro.org/content/2/2/ENEURO.0014-14.2015.short 4100 - http://www.eneuro.org/content/2/2/ENEURO.0014-14.2015.full SO - eneuro2015 Mar 01; 2 AB - Although there is evidence that adult neurogenesis contributes to the therapeutic efficacy of chronic antidepressant treatment for anxiety and depression disorders, the role of adult neurogenesis in the onset of depression-related symptoms is still open to question. To address this issue, we utilized a transgenic mouse strain in which adult neurogenesis was specifically and conditionally impaired by Nestin-CreER-driven, inducible knockout (icKO) of erk5 MAP kinase in Nestin-expressing neural progenitors of the adult mouse brain upon tamoxifen administration. Here, we report that inhibition of adult neurogenesis by this mechanism is not associated with an increase of the baseline anxiety or depression in non-stressed animals, nor does it increase the animal’s susceptibility to depression after chronic unpredictable stress treatment. Our findings indicate that impaired adult neurogenesis does not lead to anxiety or depression.