Fear conditioning and fear extinction play key roles in the development and treatment of anxietyrelated disorders, yet there is little information concerning experiential variables that modulate these processes. Here we examined the impact of exposure to a stressor in a different environment on subsequent fear conditioning and extinction, and whether the degree of behavioral control that the subject has over the stressor is of importance. Rats received a session of either escapable (controllable) tailshock (ES), yoked inescapable (uncontrollable) tailshock (IS), or control treatment (HC) 7 days before fear conditioning in which a tone and footshock were paired. Conditioning was measured 24 h later. In a second experiment rats received ES, IS or HC 24 h after contextual fear conditioning. Extinction then occurred every day beginning 7 days later until a criterion was reached. Spontaneous recovery of fear was assessed 14 days after extinction. IS potentiated fear conditioning when given before fear conditioning, and potentiated fear responding during extinction when given after conditioning. Importantly, ES potently interfered with later fear conditioning, decreased fear responding during fear extinction, and prevented spontaneous recovery of fear. Additionally, we examined if the activation of the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFCv) by ES is critical for the protective effects of ES on later fear conditioning. Inactivation of the mPFCv with muscimol at the time of the initial experience with control prevented ES-induced reductions in later contextual and auditory fear conditioning.Finally, we explored if the protective effects of ES extended to an unconditioned fear stimulus, ferret odor. Unlike conditioned fear, prior ES increased the fear response to ferret odor to the same degree as did IS.Keywords stressor controllability; medial prefrontal cortex; fear conditioning; fear extinction; spontaneous recovery; PTSD The phenomena of Pavlovian fear conditioning and fear extinction have come to be viewed as key processes involved in the development (Mineka and Zinbarg, 2006) and treatment (Rothbaum and Davis, 2003) of anxiety disorders, respectively. In addition to the obvious procedural similarity between fear conditioning/extinction and the conditions that foster Address correspondence to Michael V. Baratta,

Exposure to uncontrollable stressors produces a variety of behavioral consequences (e.g. exaggerated fear, reduced social exploration) that do not occur if the stressor is controllable. In addition, an initial experience with a controllable stressor can block the behavioral and neural responses to a later uncontrollable stressor. The serotonergic (5-HT) dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) has come to be viewed as a critical structure in mediating the behavioral effects of uncontrollable stress. Recent work suggests that the buffering effects of behavioral control on the DRN-dependent behavioral outcomes of uncontrollable stress require ventral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFCv) activation at the time of behavioral control. The present studies were conducted to directly determine whether or not controllable stress selectively activates DRN-projecting neurons within the mPFCv. To examine this possibility in the rat, we combined retrograde tracing (fluorogold iontophoresed into the DRN) with Fos immunohistochemistry, a marker for neural activation. Exposure to controllable, relative to uncontrollable, stress increased Fos expression in fluorogold-labeled neurons in the prelimbic region (PL) of the mPFCv. Furthermore, in a separate experiment, a prior experience with controllable stress led to potentiation of Fos expression in retrogradely labeled PL neurons in response to an uncontrollable stressor one week later. These results suggest that the PL selectively responds to behavioral control and utilizes such information to regulate the brainstem response to ongoing and subsequent stressors.

SignificanceA central tenet of economics is that as the price of a commodity increases, its demand goes down because individuals choose to buy less. Mounting evidence supports a role for the neuromodulator dopamine in representing subjective value. We investigated the role of dopamine in valuation by presenting rats with a reward across a range of prices. We showed that dopamine concentration decreased with price and increasing release using optogenetic manipulations-altered price sensitivity. Increasing release prior to reward delivery made animals more sensitive to price, whereas increasing release at reward delivery made animals less sensitive to price. These data extend the notion that dopamine release events encode subjective value and further demonstrate that increasing dopamine release causally modifies price sensitivity.

The research in the current study used mice single-or group-housed on a 12 h light/dark cycle with food and water available ad libitum with experiments run during the light portion. All experiments were approved by the University of Minnesota and Marquette University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. The following funding sources made the study possible: National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (P30 NS062158); National Institute on Drug Abuse grant K99 DA038706 (to M.H.), R00DA038706 (M.H.), R00DA038706-04S1 (A.C.M), R01DA019666 (M.J.T.), K02DA035459 (M.J.T.) and T32 DA007234 (A.E.I.)..

Exposure to unpredictable environmental stress is widely recognized as a major determinant for risk and severity in neuropsychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder, anxiety, schizophrenia, and PTSD. The ability of ostensibly unrelated disorders to give rise to seemingly similar psychiatric phenotypes highlights a need to identify circuit-level concepts that could unify diverse factors under a common pathophysiology. Although difficult to disentangle a causative effect of stress from other factors on medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) dysfunction, a wealth of data from humans and rodents demonstrates that the PFC is a key target of stress. The present study sought to identify a model of chronic unpredictable stress (CUS) which induces affective behaviors in C57BL6J mice and once established, measure stress-related alterations in intrinsic excitability and synaptic regulation of mPFC layer 5/6 pyramidal neurons. Adult male mice received 2 weeks of ‘less intense’ stress or 2 or 4 weeks of ‘more intense’ CUS followed by sucrose preference for assessment of anhedonia, elevated plus maze for assessment of anxiety and forced swim test for assessment of depressive-like behaviors. Our findings indicate that more intense CUS exposure results in increased anhedonia, anxiety, and depressive behaviors, while the less intense stress results in no measured behavioral phenotypes. Once a behavioral model was established, mice were euthanized approximately 21 days post-stress for whole-cell patch clamp recordings from layer 5/6 pyramidal neurons in the prelimbic (PrL) and infralimbic (IL) cortices. No significant differences were initially observed in intrinsic cell excitability in either region. However, post-hoc analysis and subsequent confirmation using transgenic mice expressing tdtomato or eGFP under control of dopamine D1-or D2-type receptor showed that D1-expressing pyramidal neurons (D1-PYR) in the PrL exhibit reduced thresholds to fire an action potential (increased excitability) but impaired firing capacity at more depolarized potentials, whereas D2-expressing pyramidal neurons (D2-PYR) showed an overall reduction in excitability and spike firing frequency. Examination of synaptic transmission showed that D1-and D2-PYR exhibit differences in basal excitatory and inhibitory signaling under naïve conditions. In CUS mice, D1-PYR showed increased frequency of both miniature excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic currents, whereas D2-PYR only showed a reduction in excitatory currents. These findings demonstrate that D1-and D2-PYR subpopulations differentially undergo stress-induced intrinsic and synaptic plasticity that may have functional implications for stress-related pathology, and that these adaptations may reflect unique differences in basal properties regulating output of these cells.