Identification of a prefrontal cortex-to-amygdala pathway for chronic stress-induced anxiety

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15920-7
• Publication Date: 2020-05-06T10:03:43Z
• Authors: Wei-Zhu Liu; Wen-Hua Zhang; Zhi-Heng Zheng; Jia-Xin Zou; Xiao-Xuan Liu; Shou-He Huang; Wen-Jie You; Ye He; Jun-Yu Zhang; Xiao-Dong Wang; Bing-Xing Pan
• Keywords: Basolateral amygdala

Abstract Dysregulated prefrontal control over amygdala is engaged in the pathogenesis of psychiatric diseases including depression and anxiety disorders. Here we show that, a rodent model induced by chronic restraint stress (CRS), dysregulation occurs basolateral projection neurons receiving mono-directional inputs from dorsomedial cortex (dmPFC→BLA PNs) rather than those reciprocally connected with dmPFC (dmPFC↔BLA PNs). Specifically, CRS shifts dmPFC-driven excitatory-inhibitory balance towards excitation former, but not latter population. Such specificity preferential to connections made dmPFC, caused enhanced presynaptic glutamate release, highly correlated increased anxiety-like behavior stressed mice. Importantly, low-frequency optogenetic stimulation afferents BLA normalizes release onto dmPFC→BLA PNs lastingly attenuates CRS-induced increase behavior. Our findings thus reveal target cell-based mPFC-to-amygdala transmission for stress-induced anxiety.