Differential effects of stress on fear learning and activation of the amygdala in pre-adolescent and adult male rats

Barbayannis, Georgia; Franco, Daly; Wong, Solange; Galdamez, Josselyn; Romeo, Russell D.; Bauer, Elizabeth P.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.07.058

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Late adolescence and emerging adulthood are transitional periods marked by major physiological and psychological changes, including elevated stress (Hogan and Astone, 1986 ; Arnett, 2000 ; Shanahan, 2000 ; Spear, 2000 ; Scales et al, 2015 ; Romeo et al, 2016 ; Barbayannis et al, 2017 ; Chiang et al, 2019 ; Lally and Valentine-French, 2019 ; Matud et al, 2020 ). This pattern is particularly true for college students.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

et al. 2022

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Academic stress may be the single most dominant stress factor that affects the mental well-being of college students. Some groups of students may experience more stress than others, and the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic could further complicate the stress response. We surveyed 843 college students and evaluated whether academic stress levels affected their mental health, and if so, whether there were specific vulnerable groups by gender, race/ethnicity, year of study, and reaction to the pandemic. Using a combination of scores from the Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS) and the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS), we found a significant correlation between worse academic stress and poor mental well-being in all the students, who also reported an exacerbation of stress in response to the pandemic. In addition, SWEMWBS scores revealed the lowest mental health and highest academic stress in non-binary individuals, and the opposite trend was observed for both the measures in men. Furthermore, women and non-binary students reported higher academic stress than men, as indicated by PAS scores. The same pattern held as a reaction to COVID-19-related stress. PAS scores and responses to the pandemic varied by the year of study, but no obvious patterns emerged. These results indicate that academic stress in college is significantly correlated to psychological well-being in the students who responded to this survey. In addition, some groups of college students are more affected by stress than others, and additional resources and support should be provided to them.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

et al. 2022

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“…In addition, GR is widely expressed in the brain, especially with higher expression levels in brain regions involved in stress response such as hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex [2,12]. Some studies showed that GR expression in the amygdala was decreased or not significantly altered during stress exposure [35][36][37][38][39][40]. However, there are also studies reporting that singleprolonged stress up-regulated GRs in the BLA [41]; chronic immobilization stress (CIS) significantly increased plasma corticosterone levels and GR expression in the amygdala of rats, thereby inducing anxiety and depression-like behaviors [42]; inactivation of BLA neurons not only prevented CIS-induced increases in corticosterone concentrations but also modified stress-induced changes in GR [43].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Glucocorticoid receptor, a potential mediator of differential regulation on amygdala neurons by chronic stress

Zhang¹,

Zhong²,

Wu³

et al. 2022

Stress and Brain

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The amygdala, a key target for chronic stress, forms the hub of the brain's emotional circuits with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and ventral hippocampus (vHPC). The structural and functional remodeling of the amygdala, especially the basolateral amygdala (BLA), caused by chronic stress is closely related to attendant changes in mood disorders such as anxiety disorders. Our previous study found that chronic stress differentially regulated BLA projection neurons (PNs) in different circuits, as evidenced by the fact that spine density and glutamatergic signaling only in BLA PNs targeting vHPC (BLA → vHPC PNs) were remodeled by chronic restraint stress (CRS), whereas BLA PNs targeting mPFC (BLA→mPFC PNs) and nucleus accumbens (BLA→NAc PNs) were not markedly altered. However, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. These BLA PNs integrated in different neural circuits are in an almost-the-same microenvironment, but triggered different reactions to stress, suggesting that they may have different signal receiving or transmitting mechanisms. Considering the critical role of glucocorticoids in the modulation of brain structure and function by stress, we hypothesize that glucocorticoid receptor (GR) may be a potential mediator of the differential regulation of BLA neurons by chronic stress. In this study, we sought to clarify whether the expression levels of GR on BLA PNs in different circuits and their response patterns to CRS are different. And the results showed that CRS significantly enhanced the GR expression of BLA→ vHPC PNs, but had no obvious effect on the GR expression of BLA→mPFC PNs and BLA→NAc PNs. Moreover, the increase of corticosterone concentration in mice caused by prolonged stress only selectively caused the elevated response of GR in BLA→vHPC PNs. Taken together, our findings hint that the GR may be a potential and essential mediator of chronic stress-caused differential regulation on BLA PN.

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“…Performance was fully recovered when tested 24 h after the injection. Animal stress may impede learning and increase behavioral and neuronal variability, limiting the interpretation of certain metrics in behavioral neuroscience studies 60,61 . The increased variability may necessitate higher sample sizes, which, together with animal welfare concerns due to elevated stress, requires ethical considerations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient training of mice on the 5-choice serial reaction time task in an automated rodent training system

Birtalan

Bánhidi

Sanders

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Experiments aiming to understand sensory-motor systems, cognition and behavior necessitate training animals to perform complex tasks. Traditional training protocols require lab personnel to move the animals between home cages and training chambers, to start and end training sessions, and in some cases, to hand-control each training trial. Human labor not only limits the amount of training per day, but also introduces several sources of variability and may increase animal stress. Here we present an automated training system for the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT), a classic rodent task often used to test sensory detection, sustained attention and impulsivity. We found that full automation without human intervention allowed rapid, cost-efficient training, and decreased stress as measured by corticosterone levels. Training breaks introduced only a transient drop in performance, and mice readily generalized across training systems when transferred from automated to manual protocols. We further validated our automated training system with wireless optogenetics and pharmacology experiments, expanding the breadth of experimental needs our system may fulfill. Our automated 5CSRTT system can serve as a prototype for fully automated behavioral training, with methods and principles transferrable to a range of rodent tasks.

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Differential effects of stress on fear learning and activation of the amygdala in pre-adolescent and adult male rats

Cited by 14 publications

References 65 publications

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

Glucocorticoid receptor, a potential mediator of differential regulation on amygdala neurons by chronic stress

Efficient training of mice on the 5-choice serial reaction time task in an automated rodent training system

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