Publication Date:
2011-03-11
Description:
Anxiety--a sustained state of heightened apprehension in the absence of immediate threat--becomes severely debilitating in disease states. Anxiety disorders represent the most common of psychiatric diseases (28% lifetime prevalence) and contribute to the aetiology of major depression and substance abuse. Although it has been proposed that the amygdala, a brain region important for emotional processing, has a role in anxiety, the neural mechanisms that control anxiety remain unclear. Here we explore the neural circuits underlying anxiety-related behaviours by using optogenetics with two-photon microscopy, anxiety assays in freely moving mice, and electrophysiology. With the capability of optogenetics to control not only cell types but also specific connections between cells, we observed that temporally precise optogenetic stimulation of basolateral amygdala (BLA) terminals in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA)--achieved by viral transduction of the BLA with a codon-optimized channelrhodopsin followed by restricted illumination in the downstream CeA--exerted an acute, reversible anxiolytic effect. Conversely, selective optogenetic inhibition of the same projection with a third-generation halorhodopsin (eNpHR3.0) increased anxiety-related behaviours. Importantly, these effects were not observed with direct optogenetic control of BLA somata, possibly owing to recruitment of antagonistic downstream structures. Together, these results implicate specific BLA-CeA projections as critical circuit elements for acute anxiety control in the mammalian brain, and demonstrate the importance of optogenetically targeting defined projections, beyond simply targeting cell types, in the study of circuit function relevant to neuropsychiatric disease.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154022/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154022/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Tye, Kay M -- Prakash, Rohit -- Kim, Sung-Yon -- Fenno, Lief E -- Grosenick, Logan -- Zarabi, Hosniya -- Thompson, Kimberly R -- Gradinaru, Viviana -- Ramakrishnan, Charu -- Deisseroth, Karl -- 1F32MH088010-01/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- DP1 OD000616/OD/NIH HHS/ -- DP1 OD000616-01/OD/NIH HHS/ -- R01 DA020794/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ -- R01 DA020794-01/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ -- R01 MH075957/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R01 MH075957-01A2/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- England -- Nature. 2011 Mar 17;471(7338):358-62. doi: 10.1038/nature09820. Epub 2011 Mar 9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21389985" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amygdala/cytology/*physiology/radiation effects
;
Animals
;
Anxiety/*physiopathology
;
Anxiety Disorders/physiopathology
;
Halorhodopsins/metabolism
;
Light
;
Mice
;
Models, Neurological
;
Neural Pathways/physiology/radiation effects
;
Neurons/physiology/radiation effects
;
Stress, Physiological/physiology
;
Synapses/physiology/radiation effects
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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