Control over Stress, But Not Stress Per Se Increases Prefrontal Cortical Pyramidal Neuron Excitability

• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2669-12.2012
• Publication Date: 2012-09-12T21:23:12Z
• Authors: Juan A. Varela; Jungang Wang; John P. Christianson; Steven F. Maier; Donald C. Cooper
• Keywords: Bursting

Behavioral control over a stressful event reduces the negative consequences of not only that event, but also future events. Plasticity in prelimbic (PL) medial prefrontal cortex is critical to this process, nature changes induced unknown. We used patch-clamp recording measure intrinsic excitability PL pyramidal neurons acute slices from rats exposed either escapable stress (ES), for which had behavioral tail-shock termination, or inescapable (IS) without control. Shortly after exposure (2 h) stress, ES group larger action potential (AP) amplitude and faster AP rise rate, postspike afterdepolarization, reduced membrane time constant. No significant effects IS were observed. developed conductance-based computer model using simulation tool NEURON. The simulated observed with increases Na + conductance ( g Na) T-type Ca 2+ T ). empirical computational results indicate itself, neuron by increasing excitability. It proposed plasticity important controllable stressor exposure.