Sex and Stress Govern the Function and Innervation of a Basolateral Amygdala to Nucleus Accumbens Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone/GABA-Expressing Projection.

ABSTRACT: 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 long-range corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)/GABA-expressing projection from the basolateral amygdala (BLA) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) that mediates reward-seeking deficits in adult ELA males-but not females. 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 the BLA and clozapine-

SUBMITTER: Taniguchi L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12809659 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature