Carvalho, Mirella Salgues de2018-02-212021-10-062018-02-212021-10-062017-12-06CARVALHO, Mirella Salgues de. Avaliação comportamental de ratas em diferentes fases do ciclo estral por meio do teste do nado forçado e campo aberto. 2017. 38 f. Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (Graduação em Biomedicina) - Centro de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 2017.https://repositorio.ufrn.br/handle/123456789/43172Depression and anxiety are the most frequent mental disorders wide world. Epidemiological studies reported that women have double risk to undergoing mental disorders compared to men. In addition, it has been described that female sexual hormones may be related to depressive symptoms and anxiety, since postpartum and menopause period are most frequent related to depression or anxiety disorders in women. Moreover, mood alterations and anxiety are also found during menstrual cycle. Estrogen and progesterone levels alteration during post-partum, menopause or menstrual cycle are widely known and could be related to an increase in women susceptibility to depression/anxiety as these sexual hormones may alter neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline metabolism in central nervous system. Then, this study was carried out in order to further evaluate female rat behavior during different phases of estrous cycle. The estrous cycle phase was determined and the animals were used in depression and anxietyrelated tests: forced swim and open field test. No differences were found in the behavior parameters analyzed in forced swim test. However, we found that early diestrous female rats presented an increase in total distance traveled compared to estrous female rats, indicating an augment in exploratory behavior/motor activity. In conclusion, hormonal variation during estrous cycle is unable to induce female rat depressive behavior, but it is able to alter exploratory behavior/motor activity. More studies are necessary to further evaluate the effects of sexual hormone fluctuation and mood disorders.openAccessDepressãoAnsiedadeFêmeasCiclo estralEstrogênioProgesteronabachelorThesis