Sex-and Stress-Dependent Plasticity of a Corticotropin Releasing Hormone / GABA Projection from the Basolateral Amygdala to Nucleus Accumbens that Mediates Reward Behaviors.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Motivated behaviors are executed by refined brain circuits. Early-life adversity (ELA) is a risk for human affective disorders involving dysregulated reward behaviors. In mice, ELA causes anhedonia-like behaviors in males and augmented reward motivation in females, indicating sex-dependent disruption of reward circuit operations. We recently identified a corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) expressing GABAergic projection from basolateral amygdala (BLA) to nucleus accumbens (NAc) that governs reward-seeking deficits in adult ELA males, but not females.

Methods

To probe the sex-specific role of this projection in reward behaviors, adult male and female CRH-Cre mice raised in control or ELA conditions received excitatory or inhibitory Cre-dependent DREADDs in BLA,

SUBMITTER: Taniguchi L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11623690 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature