Stress activates the nucleus incertus and modulates plasticity in the hippocampo-medial prefrontal cortical pathway.

Stress activates the nucleus incertus and modulates plasticity in the hippocampo-medial prefrontal cortical pathway.
Brain Res Bull. 2015 Oct 31;
Authors: Rajkumar R, Wu Y, Farooq U, Tan WH, Dawe GS
Abstract
The nucleus incertus (NI) is a small brainstem cluster of neurons presumed to play a role in stress responses. We show that swim stress (normal water: 30min and cold water: 20min) and elevation stress robustly induced c-Fos expression in the NI and significantly suppressed long term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampo-medial prefrontal cortical (HP-mPFC) pathway. To examine whether activation of CRF1 receptors in the NI plays a role in the suppression of HP-mPFC LTP, antalarmin, a specific CRF1 receptor antagonist, was infused directly into the NI either before presentation of (1) elevation stress or (2) high frequency stimulation. As predicted, the intra-NI infusion of antalarmin reversed the elevation stress-induced suppression of LTP in the HP-mPFC pathway. This short report suggests that the CRF1 receptor system in the NI contributes to stress-related impairment in the plasticity of HP-mPFC pathway. The findings suggest that the NI-HP-mPFC is a stress responsive circuit in the rodent brain.
PMID: 26529052 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Brain Research Bulletin - October 31, 2015 Category: Neurology Authors: Rajkumar R, Wu Y, Farooq U, Tan WH, Dawe GS Tags: Brain Res Bull Source Type: research