µ-opioid receptor-mediated downregulation of midline thalamic pathways to basal and central amygdala.

ABSTRACT: Brain µ-opioid receptors (MOR) mediate reward and help coping with pain, social rejection, anxiety and depression. The dorsal midline thalamus (dMT) integrates visceral/emotional signals and biases behavior towards aversive or defensive states through projections to the amygdala. While a dense MOR expression in the dMT has been described, the exact cellular and synaptic mechanisms of µ-opioidergic modulation in the dMT-amygdala circuitry remain unresolved. Here, we hypothesized that MORs are important negative modulators of dMT-amygdala excitatory networks. Using retrograde tracers and targeted channelrhodopsin expression in combination with patch-clamp electrophysiology, we found that projections of dMT neurons onto both basal amygdala principal neurons (BA PN) and central amygdala (CeL)

SUBMITTER: Goedecke L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6882837 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature