Age-dependent susceptibility of adult hippocampal cell proliferation to chronic psychosocial stress

Stress inhibits neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus. It is not known, however, whether age has any influence on this process. We subjected adult male tree shrews to 5 weeks of psychosocial stress, after which dentate cytogenesis was determined using BrdU immunohistochemistry. We found that older animals were significantly more vulnerable to the adverse effect of stress on dentate cell proliferation.