Chronic corticosterone exposure causes anxiety- and depression-related behaviors with altered gut microbial and brain metabolomic profiles in adult male C57BL/6J mice

Chronic exposure to glucocorticoids in response to long-term stress is thought to be a risk factor for major depression. Depression is associated with disturbances in the gut microbiota composition and peripheral and central energy metabolism. However, the relationship between chronic glucocorticoid exposure, the gut microbiota, and brain metabolism remains largely unknown. In this study, we first investigated the effects of chronic corticosterone exposure on various domains of behavior in adult male C57BL/6J mice treated with the glucocorticoid corticosterone to evaluate them as an animal model of depression. We then examined the gut microbial composition and brain and plasma metabolome in corticosterone-treated mice. Chronic corticosterone treatment resulted in reduced locomotor activity, increased anxiety-like and depression-related behaviors, decreased rotarod latency, reduced acoustic startle response, decreased social behavior, working memory deficits, impaired contextual fear memory, and enhanced cued fear memory. Chronic corticosterone treatment also altered the composition of gut microbiota, which has been reported to be associated with depression, such as increased abundance of Bifidobacterium, Turicibacter, and Corynebacterium and decreased abundance of Barnesiella. Metabolomic data revealed that long-term exposure to corticosterone led to a decrease in brain neurotransmitter metabolites, such as serotonin, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, acetylcholine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid, as well as changes in betaine and methionine metabolism, as indicated by decreased levels of adenosine, dimethylglycine, choline, and methionine in the brain. These results indicate that mice treated with corticosterone have good face and construct validity as an animal model for studying anxiety and depression with altered gut microbial composition and brain metabolism, offering new insights into the neurobiological basis of depression arising from gut-brain axis dysfunction caused by prolonged exposure to excessive glucocorticoids.