The VTA-BLA-NAc circuit for sex reward inhibited by VTA GABAergic neurons under stress in male mice

Yan, Haijing; Sun, Linshan; You, Jungmok; Cui, Minghu; Sun, Fa; Wang, Jiangong; Wang, Wentao; Wang, Dan; Liu, Dunjiang; Xu, Zhicheng; Qiu, Changyun; Liu, Bin

doi:10.1101/2021.01.20.427537

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 140 publications

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“…Further evidence for the role of the BLA-to-NAc circuit comes from recent studies on rescuing behavioral deficits induced by chronic stress (Dieterich et al, 2021;Sun et al, 2021). Collectively, the present results help extend rodent neurobiological findings to humans and indicate that separate patterns of connectivity dissociate CC from standard extinction.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Rewarded extinction increases amygdalar connectivity and stabilizes long-term memory traces in the vmPFC

Keller

Hennings

Leiker

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Neurobiological evidence in rodents indicates that threat extinction incorporates reward neurocircuitry. Consequently, incorporating reward associations with an extinction memory may be an effective strategy to persistently attenuate threat responses. Moreover, while there is considerable research on the short-term effects of extinction strategies in humans, the long-term effects of extinction are rarely considered. In a within-subjects fMRI study, we compared counterconditioning (a form of rewarded-extinction) to standard extinction, at recent (24 hours) and remote (~1 month) retrieval tests. Relative to standard extinction, counterconditioning diminished 24-hour relapse of arousal and threat expectancy, and reduced activity in brain regions associated with the appraisal and expression of threat (e.g., thalamus, insula, periaqueductal gray). The retrieval of reward-associated extinction memory was accompanied by functional connectivity between the amygdala and the ventral striatum, whereas the retrieval of standard-extinction memories was associated with connectivity between the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). One-month later, the retrieval of both standard- and rewarded-extinction was associated with amygdala-vmPFC connectivity. However, only rewarded extinction created a stable memory trace in the vmPFC, identified through overlapping multivariate patterns of fMRI activity from extinction to 24-hour and 1-month retrieval. These findings provide new evidence that reward may generate a more stable and enduring memory trace of attenuated threat in humans.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 62%