Effects of oxytocin on prosocial behavior and the associated profiles of oxytocinergic and corticotropin-releasing hormone receptors in a rodent model of posttraumatic stress disorder

Abstract

BackgroundTraumatic experience may lead to various psychological sequelae including the unforgettable trauma-associated memory as seen in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with a mechanism of impaired fear extinction due to biological imbalance among hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and fear circuit areas such as medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), hippocampus, and amygdala. Recently the impaired sociability seen in PTSD patients received great attention and the involvement of oxytocin (OXT) mediation is worth being investigated. This study examined whether the trauma-altered prosocial behavior can be modulated by OXT manipulation and its relationship with corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) signaling.MethodsMale rats previously exposed to a single prolonged stress (SPS) were evaluated for their performance in social choice test (SCT) and novel object recognition test (NORT) following the introduction of intranasal oxytocin (OXT) and OXT receptor antagonist atosiban (ASB). OXT receptors (OXTR) and CRH receptors (CRHR1, CRHR2) were quantified in both protein and mRNA levels in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), hippocampus, and amygdala.ResultsSPS reduced inclination of rats staying at the sociable place with performing less prosocial contacts. OXT can amend the deficit but this effect was blocked by ASB. Expression of OXTR became reduced following SPS in mPFC and amygdala, the latter exhibited higher therapeutic specificity to OXT. Expression of CRHR1 appeared more sensitive than CRHR2 to SPS, higher CRHR1 protein levels were found in mPFC and amygdala.ConclusionPsychological trauma-impaired sociability is highly associated with OXT signaling pathway. Intranasal OXT restored both the SPS-impaired prosocial contacts and the SPS-reduced OXTR expressions in mPFC and amygdala. OXT may have therapeutic potential to treat PTSD patients with impaired social behaviors.

Aberrant Early in Life Stimulation of the Stress-Response System Affects Emotional Contagion and Oxytocin Regulation in Adult Male Mice

“…No significant or reliable changes due to perinatal treatment were found. To date, there are conflicting opinions regarding the function of this complex behaviour, with an evolutionary conserved sequencing pattern [ 80 , 81 ] In addition to being performed for hygiene reasons (i.e., cleaning their fur, paws, tail), some authors believe that it can be associated with anxiety levels [ 82 ]; other authors instead attribute to it a pro-social communicative role between conspecifics [ 83 , 84 ]. Furthermore, the activation of the emotional state of the Observers-released by the presence of a cage mate in pain and directly facilitated by oxytocin-led to an increase in self-grooming behaviour.…”

Two-step magnetic bead-based (2MBB) techniques for immunocapture of extracellular vesicles and quantification of microRNAs for cardiovascular diseases: A pilot study

“…As a result, there are growing interests in EV biology and clinical potentials [10][11][12]. However, the progress in the field is impeded by the heterogeneity of EVs and contaminants that are often co-isolated due to overlapped physical and chemical properties [13,14]. There is a need for the improvement of methodologies that can consistently generate pure and intact EVs to provide reproducibility within and among laboratories [15].…”

Identification of the Similarities and Differences of Molecular Networks Associated With Fear Memory Formation, Extinction, and Updating in the Amygdala

“…The effects of all of these pathways on fear memory formation have been reported in many studies (Broussard et al, 2016 ; Nguyen et al, 2017 ; Ahmadian-Moghadam et al, 2018 ; Dorninger et al, 2019 ; Sun et al, 2019 ; Asai et al, 2020 ; Yang et al, 2020 ), indicating that our experimental system is reliable. For memory extinction in mice, the changed mRNAs were mainly involved in the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling pathway, oxytocin signaling pathway, cGMP-PKG signaling pathway, adipocytokine signaling pathway, neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathway (de Aguiar et al, 2013 ; Singewald et al, 2015 ; Wang et al, 2015 , 2019 ; Murphy et al, 2017 ). Subsequently, the mRNAs that were changed after both fear conditioning and fear extinction were subjected to GO and KEGG enrichment annotations.…”