Beneficial effects of selenium against the behavioral consequences of lipopolysaccharide administration in rats

Selenium and Its Compounds in the Treatment of Anxiety and Related Disorders: A Scoping Review of Translational and Clinical Research

“…The data reviewed from animal studies in this paper provides further support for this suggestion, suggesting that both selenium and selenium-containing organic compounds were effective in reducing anxiety-like behaviours in rodents. This research also identified some of the possible molecular mechanisms underlying the anxiolytic effect of selenium, involving reduction in oxidative stress [49,50,54,53,56], reductions in the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines [51], normalization of stress-induced changes in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning [45,53], interactions with neurotransmitters such as serotonin, glutamate and GABA [43-46, 48, 49, 52], and alterations in thyroid functioning [46]. However, these results should be interpreted with caution for the following reasons.…”

“…There was evidence of a dose-response relationship in three studies involving organic selenium compounds in adult animals, with only the highest doses exhibiting a meaningful anxiolytic effect [43,44,48]. A single study of selenium also showed evidence of a dose-response effect [54]; however, a study of sodium selenite found that all three doses tested were found to be effective in reducing anxiety [47]. In studies involving symptom induction by a pharmacological agent, these behavioural effects were largely paralleled by reductions or reversals of the biochemical changes induced by the agent itself; however, none of the studies specifically examined if these biochemical changes were correlated with reductions in anxiety-like behaviour.…”

“…Sixteen of the papers included in this review belonged to this category [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57]. Methodological details and results for each of these studies are summarized in Table 1.…”

“…Methodological details and results for each of these studies are summarized in Table 1. Fourteen studies examined the effects of selenium or selenium compounds on animal models of anxiety [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. Of these studies, the majority (n = 10) used organic seleniumcontaining compounds as interventions, while two used elemental selenium and two used sodium selenite.…”

“…Various procedures were used for the induction of anxiety in experimental animals. In seven studies, anxiety was induced by the administration of a drug or toxin: these included lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (n = 2), streptozotocin (n = 2), corticosterone, kainate and arsenic (n = 1 each) [45,48,50,51,[54][55][56]. In two studies, anxiety was induced by subjecting animals to acute restraint [49,53].…”