The study of active avoidance: A platform for discussion

Dopamine D1-D2 signalling in hippocampus arbitrates approach and avoidance

The hippocampus1-6, as well as dopamine circuits7-9, coordinates decision-making in anxiety-eliciting situations. Yet, little is known about how dopamine modulates hippocampal representations of emotionally salient stimuli to inform appropriate resolution of approach versus avoidance conflicts. Here we studied dopaminoceptive neurons in the male mouse ventral hippocampus (vHipp), molecularly distinguished by their expression of dopamine D1 or D2 receptors. We show that these neurons are transcriptionally distinct and topographically organized across vHipp subfields and cell types. In the ventral subiculum where they are enriched, both D1 and D2 neurons are recruited during anxiogenic exploration, yet with distinct profiles related to investigation and behavioural selection. In turn, they mediate opposite approach-avoidance responses, and are differentially modulated by dopaminergic transmission in that region. Together, these results suggest that vHipp dopamine dynamics gate exploratory behaviours under contextual uncertainty, implicating dopaminoception in the complex computation engaged in the vHipp to govern emotional states.

Modifying the platform-mediated avoidance task: A new protocol to study active avoidance within a social context in rats

The platform-mediated active avoidance (PMA) task has been used to study the behavioral and neural mechanisms of a decision-based form of active avoidance. Across 10 days of PMA conditioning, rats learn to avoid a tone-signaled footshock by moving to a safe platform at the cost of forfeiting sucrose reward. Prior studies utilizing the PMA task involved rats learning to avoid alone in a solitary context, but we have recently modified the task to include a social context to determine how social cues may influence PMA acquisition. Additionally, we report novel measures of social interaction that occur during Social Partner PMA conditioning. This protocol provides a detailed methodology for studying active avoidance within solitary and social contexts, as well as key considerations when employing the PMA task.

Differential modulation of freezing and 22-kHz USVs by shock intensity, tone-duration matching, and anxiety levels in rodent fear-conditioning paradigms

The concept of fear in animals, particularly its manifestation and measurement, remains a focal point in psychological research. This study builds on the systematic review and meta-analysis work of Bao et al. (Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 157: 105537, 2024), which posits that freezing behavior and 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) may represent objective and subjective fear states in rodents, respectively. We further investigated how these responses are modulated by shock intensity, tone-duration matching, and individual anxiety levels in rodent fear-conditioning paradigms. Experiment 1 manipulated shock intensity during fear learning and tone-duration matching between learning and cue tests, revealing that while freezing behavior was consistent across conditions, 22-kHz USVs varied significantly and appeared later than freezing. This divergence was more pronounced in fear generalization tests. Experiment 2 explored the response differences in rodents with high and low anxiety, demonstrating that highly anxious individuals exhibited more 22-kHz USVs but not increased freezing during cue tests. These findings suggest that while freezing may reflect automatic defensive reactions, 22-kHz USVs are more indicative of rodents' cognitive appraisal and their subjective experience of fear. This distinction provides valuable insights that could improve the translation of animal fear models to human psychiatric conditions related to fear and anxiety.

Intercalated Amygdala Dysfunction Drives Avoidance Extinction Deficits in the Sapap3 Mouse Model of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

BACKGROUND

The avoidance of aversive stimuli through negative reinforcement learning, which demands dynamic responding to both positive and negative stimuli that often conflict with each other, is critical for survival in real-world environments. Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder commonly exhibit impaired negative reinforcement and extinction, perhaps involving deficits in amygdala functioning. The intercalated nuclei of the amygdala (ITC) is an amygdala subregion of particular interest that has been linked to negative reinforcement and extinction, with distinct clusters mediating separate aspects of behavior. This study focuses on the dorsal ITC cluster (ITCd) and its role in negative reinforcement during a complex behavior that models real-world dynamic decision making.

METHODS

We investigated the impact of ITCd function on negative reinforcement and extinction by applying fiber photometry measurement of GCaMP6f signals and optogenetic manipulations during a platform-mediated avoidance task in a mouse model of obsessive-compulsive disorder-like behavior, the Sapap3-null mouse.

RESULTS

We found impaired neural activity in the ITCd of male and female Sapap3-null mice to the encoding of negative stimuli during platform-mediated avoidance. Sapap3-null mice also exhibited deficits in extinction of avoidant behavior, which were modulated by ITCd neural activity.

CONCLUSIONS

Sapap3-null mice failed to extinguish avoidant behavior in platform-mediated avoidance due to heightened ITCd activity. This deficit was rescued by optogenetically inhibiting ITCd during extinction. Together, our results provide insight into the neural mechanisms that underlie negative reinforcement deficits in the context of obsessive-compulsive disorder and emphasize the necessity of ITCd in responding to negative stimuli in complex environments.

Developmentally distinct architectures in top-down pathways controlling threat avoidance

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is critical for learning and decision-making processes, including responding to threats. The protracted maturation of the mPFC extends into early adulthood. Although prominent models suggest that increasing top-down control by the mPFC eventually allows adult behavioral repertoires to emerge, it is unclear how progressive strengthening can produce nonlinear behavioral changes observed across development. We use fiber photometry and optogenetics to establish causal links between frontolimbic pathway activity and threat avoidance strategies in juvenile, adolescent and adult mice. We uncover multiple developmental switches in the roles of mPFC pathways targeting the nucleus accumbens and basolateral amygdala. These changes are accompanied by axonal pruning, strengthening of synaptic connectivity and altered functional connectivity with downstream cell types, which occur in the mPFC-basolateral amygdala and mPFC-nucleus accumbens pathways at different rates. Our results reveal how developing mPFC pathways pass through distinct architectures that may make them optimally adapted to age-specific challenges.

Generalization and extinction of platform-mediated avoidance in male and female rats

Understanding anxiety-related disorders can be advanced by studying the fear learning mechanisms implicated in the transition from adaptive to maladaptive fear. Individuals with anxiety disorders often show impaired fear extinction, pervasive avoidance, and overgeneralization of fear. While these characteristics are usually studied in isolation, their interactions are less understood. We modified the platform-mediated avoidance task to chart avoidance, generalization, and extinction in male and female rats. Male rats acquired avoidance, showed a gradient of generalization, and reduced avoidance and fear under extinction. Female rats also learned avoidance, showed gradual generalization, and extinction of defensive behaviors. Sex differences emerged in extinction learning but were subtler than expected. We present an open-source automated system for processing DeepLabCut and SimBA output to score avoidance and freezing behavior. This task effectively probes avoidance, generalization, and extinction of fear in rats, and our automated scoring approach offers a effective method to quantify defensive behaviors.

Distinct prelimbic cortex neuronal responses to emotional states of others drive emotion recognition in adult mice

The ability to perceive the emotional states of others, termed emotion recognition, allows individuals to adapt their conduct to the social environment. The brain mechanisms underlying this capacity, known to be impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), remain, however, elusive. Here, we show that adult mice can discern between emotional states of conspecifics. Fiber photometry recordings of calcium signals in the prelimbic (PrL) medial prefrontal cortex revealed inhibition of pyramidal neurons during investigation of emotionally aroused individuals, as opposed to transient excitation toward naive conspecifics. Chronic electrophysiological recordings at the single-cell level indicated social stimulus-specific responses in PrL neurons at the onset and conclusion of social investigation bouts, potentially regulating the initiation and termination of social interactions. Finally, optogenetic augmentation of the differential neuronal response enhanced emotion recognition, while its reduction eliminated such behavior. Thus, differential PrL neuronal response to individuals with distinct emotional states underlies murine emotion recognition.

Intersect between brain mechanisms of conditioned threat, active avoidance, and reward

Active avoidance is a core behavior for human coping, and its excess is common across psychiatric diseases. The decision to actively avoid a threat is influenced by cost and reward. Yet, threat, avoidance, and reward have been studied in silos. We discuss behavioral and brain circuits of active avoidance and the interactions with fear and threat. In addition, we present a neural toggle switch model enabling fear-to-anxiety transition and approaching reward vs. avoiding harm decision. To fully comprehend how threat, active avoidance, and reward intersect, it is paramount to develop one shared experimental approach across phenomena and behaviors, which will ultimately allow us to better understand human behavior and pathology.

Prefrontal dopamine activity is critical for rapid threat avoidance learning

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is required for learning associations that determine whether animals approach or avoid potential threats in the environment. Dopaminergic (DA) projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the mPFC carry information, particularly about aversive outcomes, that may inform prefrontal computations. But the role of prefrontal DA in learning based on aversive outcomes remains poorly understood. Here, we used platform mediated avoidance (PMA) to study the role of mPFC DA in threat avoidance learning in mice. We show that activity in VTA-mPFC dopaminergic terminals is required for avoidance learning, but not for escape, conditioned fear, or to recall a previously learned avoidance strategy. mPFC DA is most dynamic in the early stages of learning, and encodes aversive outcomes, their omissions, and threat-induced behaviors. Computational models of PMA behavior and DA activity revealed that mPFC DA influences learning rates and encodes the predictive relationships between cues and adaptive behaviors. Taken together, these data indicate that mPFC DA is necessary to rapidly learn behaviors required to avoid signaled threats, but not for learning cue-threat associations.

Social context modulates active avoidance: Contributions of the anterior cingulate cortex in male and female rats

Actively avoiding danger is necessary for survival. Most research on active avoidance has focused on the behavioral and neurobiological processes when individuals learn to avoid alone, within a solitary context. Therefore, little is known about how social context affects active avoidance. Using a modified version of the platform-mediated avoidance task in rats, we investigated whether the presence of a social partner attenuates conditioned freezing and enhances avoidance compared to avoidance in a solitary context. Rats spent a similar amount of time avoiding during either context; however, rats trained in the social context exhibited greater freezing as well as lower rates of darting and food seeking compared to rats trained in the solitary context. In addition, we observed higher levels of avoidance in females compared to males in the solitary context, but this sex difference was not present in rats trained in the social context. To gain greater mechanistic insight, we optogenetically inactivated glutamatergic projection neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) following avoidance training in either context. After avoidance was learned in a social context, photoinactivation of ACC reduced expression of avoidance during a test when the social partner was absent, but not when the partner was present. Our findings suggest a novel contribution of the ACC in avoidance that is learned with a social partner, which has translational implications for understanding ACC dysfunction in those suffering from trauma-related disorders.

The Organization of Anxiety Symptoms Along the Threat Imminence Continuum

Pathological anxiety is highly prevalent, impairing, and often chronic. Yet, despite considerable research, mechanistic understanding of anxiety and its translation to clinical practice remain limited. Here, we first highlight two foundational complications that contribute to this gap: a reliance on a phenomenology-driven definition of pathological anxiety in neurobiological mechanistic research, and a limited understanding of the chronicity of anxiety symptom expression. We then posit that anxiety symptoms may reflect aberrant expression of otherwise normative defensive responses. Accordingly, we propose that threat imminence, an organizing dimension for normative defensive responses observed across species, may be applied to organize and understand anxiety symptoms along a temporal dimension of expression. Empirical evidence linking distinct anxiety symptoms and the aberrant expression of imminence-dependent defensive responses is reviewed, alongside the neural mechanisms which may underpin these cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses. Drawing from extensive translational and clinical research, we suggest that understanding anxiety symptoms through this neurobiologically-informed framework may begin to overcome the conceptual complications hindering advancement in mechanistic research and clinical interventions for pathological anxiety.

Comparative Physiology and Morphology of BLA-Projecting NBM/SI Cholinergic Neurons in Mouse and Macaque

Cholinergic projection neurons of the nucleus basalis and substantia innominata (NBM/SI) densely innervate the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and have been shown to contribute to the encoding of fundamental and life-threatening experiences. Given the vital importance of these circuits in the acquisition and retention of memories that are essential for survival in a changing environment, it is not surprising that the basic anatomical organization of the NBM/SI is well conserved across animal classes as diverse as teleost and mammal. What is not known is the extent to which the physiology and morphology of NBM/SI neurons have also been conserved. To address this issue, we made patch-clamp recordings from NBM/SI neurons in ex vivo slices of two widely divergent mammalian species, mouse and rhesus macaque, focusing our efforts on cholinergic neurons that project to the BLA. We then reconstructed most of these recorded neurons post hoc to characterize neuronal morphology. We found that rhesus macaque BLA-projecting cholinergic neurons were both more intrinsically excitable and less morphologically compact than their mouse homologs. Combining measurements of 18 physiological features and 13 morphological features, we illustrate the extent of the separation. Although macaque and mouse neurons both exhibited considerable within-group diversity and overlapped with each other on multiple individual metrics, a combined morphoelectric analysis demonstrates that they form two distinct neuronal classes. Given the shared purpose of the circuits in which these neurons participate, this finding raises questions about (and offers constraints on) how these distinct classes result in similar behavior.

Impact of trauma type on neural mechanisms of threat conditioning and its extinction

Trauma type moderates the impact of trauma exposure on clinical symptomatology; however, the impact of trauma type on the neural correlates of emotion regulation is not as well understood. This study examines how violent and nonviolent trauma differentially influence the neural correlates of conditioned fear and extinction. We aggregated psychophysiological and fMRI data from three studies; we categorized reported trauma as violent or nonviolent, and subdivided violent trauma as sexual or nonsexual. We examined skin conductance responses (SCR) during a fear conditioning and extinction paradigm. For fMRI data analyses, we conducted region-specific and whole-brain analyses. We examined associations between beta weights from specific brain regions and CAPS scores. The group exposed to violent trauma showed significantly higher SCR during extinction recall. Those exposed to nonviolent trauma showed significantly higher functional activation during late extinction learning. The group exposed to violent trauma showed higher functional connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) and between the DMN and frontoparietal control network. For secondary analyses of sexual vs nonsexual trauma, we did not observe any between-group differences in SCR. During late extinction learning, the group exposed to sexual trauma showed significantly higher activation in the prefrontal cortex and precuneus. During extinction recall, the group exposed to nonsexual trauma showed significantly higher activation in the insular cortex. Violent trauma significantly impacts functional brain activations and connectivity in brain areas important for perception and attention with no significant impact on brain areas that modulate emotion regulation. Sexual trauma impacts brain areas important for internal perception.

Behavioral outputs and overlapping circuits between conditional fear and active avoidance

Aversive learning can produce a wide variety of defensive behavioral responses depending on the circumstances, ranging from reactive responses like freezing to proactive avoidance responses. While most of this initial learning is behaviorally supported by an expectancy of an aversive outcome and neurally supported by activity within the basolateral amygdala, activity in other brain regions become necessary for the execution of defensive strategies that emerge in other aversive learning paradigms such as active avoidance. Here, we review the neural circuits that support both reactive and proactive defensive behaviors that are motivated by aversive learning, and identify commonalities between the neural substrates of these distinct (and often exclusive) behavioral strategies.

A rat model of operant negative reinforcement in opioid-dependent males and females

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE

Avoidance of opioid withdrawal plays a key role in human opioid addiction. Here, we present a procedure for studying operant negative reinforcement in rats that was inspired by primate procedures where opioid-dependent subjects lever-press to prevent naloxone infusions.

METHODS

In Experiment 1, we trained rats (n = 30, 15 females) to lever-press to escape and then avoid mild footshocks (0.13-0.27 mA) for 35 days (30 trials/d). Next, we catheterized them and implanted minipumps containing methadone (10 mg/kg/day) or saline. We then paired (4 times, single session) a light cue (20-s) with a naloxone infusion (20 µg/kg, i.v) that precipitated opioid withdrawal. Next, we trained the rats to escape naloxone injections for 10 days (30 trials/d). Each trial started with the onset of the opioid-withdrawal cue. After 20-s, the lever extended, and an infusion of naloxone (1 to 2.2 µg/kg/infusion) began; a lever-press during an 11-s window terminated the withdrawal-paired cue and the infusion. In Experiment 2, we trained rats (n = 34, 17 females) on the same procedure but decreased the footshock escape/avoidance training to 20 days.

RESULTS

All rats learned to lever-press to escape or avoid mild footshocks. In both experiments, a subset, 56% (10/18) and 33% (8/24) of methadone-dependent rats learned to lever-press to escape naloxone infusions.

CONCLUSIONS

We introduce an operant negative reinforcement procedure where a subset of opioid-dependent rats learned to lever-press to escape withdrawal-inducing naloxone infusions. The procedure can be used to study mechanisms of individual differences in opioid negative reinforcement-related behaviors in opioid-dependent rats.

Transformations in prefrontal ensemble activity underlying rapid threat avoidance learning

The capacity to learn cues that predict aversive outcomes, and understand how to avoid those outcomes, is critical for adaptive behavior. Naturalistic avoidance often means accessing a safe location, but whether a location is safe depends on the nature of the impending threat. These relationships must be rapidly learned if animals are to survive. The prelimbic subregion (PL) of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) integrates learned associations to influence these threat avoidance strategies. Prior work has focused on the role of PL activity in avoidance behaviors that are fully established, leaving the prefrontal mechanisms that drive rapid avoidance learning poorly understood. To determine when and how these learning-related changes emerge, we recorded PL neural activity using miniscope calcium imaging as mice rapidly learned to avoid a threatening cue by accessing a safe location. Over the course of learning, we observed enhanced modulation of PL activity representing intersections of a threatening cue with safe or risky locations and movements between them. We observed rapid changes in PL population dynamics that preceded changes observable in the encoding of individual neurons. Successful avoidance could be predicted from cue-related population dynamics during early learning. Population dynamics during specific epochs of the conditioned tone period correlated with the modeled learning rates of individual animals. In contrast, changes in single-neuron encoding occurred later, once an avoidance strategy had stabilized. Together, our findings reveal the sequence of PL changes that characterize rapid threat avoidance learning.

Comparative physiology and morphology of BLA-projecting NBM/SI cholinergic neurons in mouse and macaque

Cholinergic projection neurons of the nucleus basalis and substantia innominata (NBM/SI) densely innervate the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and have been shown to contribute to the encoding of fundamental and life-threatening experiences. Given the vital importance of these circuits in the acquisition and retention of memories that are essential for survival in a changing environment, it is not surprising that the basic anatomical organization of the NBM/SI is well conserved across animal classes as diverse as teleost and mammal. What is not known is the extent to which the physiology and morphology of NBM/SI neurons have also been conserved. To address this issue, we made patch-clamp recordings from NBM/SI neurons in ex vivo slices of two widely divergent mammalian species, mouse and rhesus macaque, focusing our efforts on cholinergic neurons that project to the BLA. We then reconstructed most of these recorded neurons post hoc to characterize neuronal morphology. We found that rhesus macaque BLA-projecting cholinergic neurons were both more intrinsically excitable and less morphologically compact than their mouse homologs. Combining measurements of 18 physiological features and 13 morphological features, we illustrate the extent of the separation. Although macaque and mouse neurons both exhibited considerable within-group diversity and overlapped with each other on multiple individual metrics, a combined morpho-electric analysis demonstrates that they form two distinct neuronal classes. Given the shared purpose of the circuits in which these neurons participate, this finding raises questions about (and offers constraints on) how these distinct classes result in similar behavior.

Acute stress yields a sex-dependent facilitation of signaled active avoidance in rats

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating disorder characterized by excessive fear, hypervigilance, and avoidance of thoughts, situations or reminders of the trauma. Among these symptoms, relatively little is known about the etiology of pathological avoidance. Here we sought to determine whether acute stress influences avoidant behavior in adult male and female rats. We used a stress procedure (unsignaled footshock) that is known to induce long-term sensitization of fear and potentiate aversive learning. Rats were submitted to the stress procedure and, one week later, underwent two-way signaled active avoidance conditioning (SAA). In this task, rats learn to prevent an aversive outcome (shock) by performing a shuttling response when exposed to a warning signal (tone). We found that acute stress significantly enhanced SAA acquisition rate in females, but not males. Female rats exhibited significantly greater avoidance responding on the first day of training relative to controls, reaching similar levels of performance by the second day. Males that underwent the stress procedure showed similar rates of acquisition to controls but exhibited resistance to extinction. This was manifest as both elevated avoidance and intertrial responding across extinction days relative to non-stressed controls, an effect that was not observed in females. In a second experiment, acute stress sensitized footshock unconditioned responses in males, not females. However, males and females exhibited similar levels of stress-enhanced fear learning (SEFL), which was expressed as sensitized freezing to a shock-paired context. Together, these results reveal that acute stress facilitates SAA performance in both male and female rats, though the nature of this effect is different in the two sexes. We did not observe sex differences in SEFL, suggesting that the stress-induced sex difference in performance was selective for instrumental avoidance. Future work will elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the differential effect of stress on instrumental avoidance in male and female rats.

Arbovirus infection increases the risk for the development of neurodegenerative disease pathology in the murine model

Alzheimer's disease is classified as a progressive disorder resulting from protein misfolding, also known as proteinopathies. Proteinopathies include synucleinopathies triggered by misfolded amyloid α-synuclein, tauopathies triggered by misfolded tau, and amyloidopathies triggered by misfolded amyloid of which Alzheimer's disease (β-amyloid) is most prevalent. Most neurodegenerative diseases (>90%) are not due to dominantly inherited genetic causes. Instead, it is thought that the risk for disease is a complicated interaction between inherited and environmental risk factors that, with age, drive pathology that ultimately results in neurodegeneration and disease onset. Since it is increasingly appreciated that encephalitic viral infections can have profoundly detrimental neurological consequences long after the acute infection has resolved, we tested the hypothesis that viral encephalitis exacerbates the pathological profile of protein-misfolding diseases. Using a robust, reproducible, and well-characterized mouse model for β-amyloidosis, Tg2576, we studied the contribution of alphavirus-induced encephalitis (TC-83 strain of VEEV to model alphavirus encephalitis viruses) on the progression of neurodegenerative pathology. We longitudinally evaluated neurological, neurobehavioral, and cognitive levels, followed by a post-mortem analysis of brain pathology focusing on neuroinflammation. We found more severe cognitive deficits and brain pathology in Tg2576 mice inoculated with TC-83 than in their mock controls. These data set the groundwork to investigate sporadic Alzheimer's disease and treatment interventions for this infectious disease risk factor.

Neurobiological basis of stress resilience

A majority of humans faced with severe stress maintain normal physiological and behavioral function, a process referred to as resilience. Such stress resilience has been modeled in laboratory animals and, over the past 15 years, has transformed our understanding of stress responses and how to approach the treatment of human stress disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety disorders. Work in rodents has demonstrated that resilience to chronic stress is an active process that involves much more than simply avoiding the deleterious effects of the stress. Rather, resilience is mediated largely by the induction of adaptations that are associated uniquely with resilience. Such mechanisms of natural resilience in rodents are being characterized at the molecular, cellular, and circuit levels, with an increasing number being validated in human investigations. Such discoveries raise the novel possibility that treatments for human stress disorders, in addition to being geared toward reversing the damaging effects of stress, can also be based on inducing mechanisms of natural resilience in individuals who are inherently more susceptible. This review provides a progress report on this evolving field.

Active avoidance recruits the anterior cingulate cortex regardless of social context in male and female rats

Actively avoiding danger is necessary for survival. Most research has focused on the behavioral and neurobiological processes when individuals avoid danger alone, under solitary conditions. Therefore, little is known about how social context affects active avoidance. Using a modified version of the platform-mediated avoidance task in rats, we investigated whether the presence of a social partner attenuates conditioned freezing and enhances avoidance learning compared to avoidance learned under solitary conditions. Rats spent a similar percentage of time avoiding during the tone under both conditions; however, rats trained under social conditions exhibited greater freezing during the tone as well as lower rates of darting and food seeking compared to solitary rats. Under solitary conditions, we observed higher levels of avoidance in females compared to males, which was not present in rats trained under social conditions. To gain greater mechanistic insight, we optogenetically inactivated glutamatergic projection neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) following avoidance training. Photoinactivation of ACC neurons reduced expression of avoidance under social conditions both in the presence and absence of the partner. Under solitary conditions, photoinactivation of ACC delayed avoidance in males but blocked avoidance in females. Our findings suggest that avoidance is mediated by the ACC, regardless of social context, and may be dysfunctional in those suffering from trauma-related disorders. Furthermore, sex differences in prefrontal circuits mediating active avoidance warrant further investigation, given that females experience a higher risk of developing anxiety disorders.

Acute stress yields a sex-dependent facilitation of signaled active avoidance in rats

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating disorder characterized by excessive fear, hypervigilance, and avoidance of thoughts, situations or reminders of the trauma. Among these symptoms, relatively little is known about the etiology of pathological avoidance. Here we sought to determine whether acute stress influences avoidant behavior in adult male and female rats. We used a stress procedure (unsignaled footshock) that is known to induce long-term sensitization of fear and potentiate aversive learning. Rats were submitted to the stress procedure and, one week later, underwent two-way signaled active avoidance conditioning (SAA). In this task, rats learn to prevent an aversive outcome (shock) by performing a shuttling response when exposed to a warning signal (tone). We found that acute stress significantly enhanced SAA acquisition rate in females, but not males. Female rats exhibited significantly greater avoidance responding on the first day of training relative to controls, reaching similar levels of performance by the second day. Males that underwent the stress procedure showed similar rates of acquisition to controls but exhibited resistance to extinction. This was manifest as both elevated avoidance and intertrial responding across extinction days relative to non-stressed controls, an effect that was not observed in females. In a second experiment, acute stress sensitized footshock unconditioned responses in males, not females. However, males and females exhibited similar levels of stress-enhanced fear learning (SEFL), which was expressed as sensitized freezing to a shock-paired context. Together, these results reveal that acute stress facilitates SAA performance in both male and female rats, though the nature of this effect is different in the two sexes. We did not observe sex differences in SEFL, suggesting that the stress-induced sex difference in performance was selective for instrumental avoidance. Future work will elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the differential effect of stress on instrumental avoidance in male and female rats.

Fear in action: Fear conditioning and alleviation through body movements

Fear memories enhance survival especially when the memories guide defensive movements to minimize harm. Accordingly, fear memories and body movements have tight relationships in animals: Fear memory acquisition results in adapting reactive defense movements, while training active defense movements reduces fear memory. However, evidence in humans is scarce because their movements are typically suppressed in experiments. Here, we tracked adult participants' body motions while they underwent ecologically valid fear conditioning in a 3D virtual space. First, with body motion tracking, we revealed that distinct spatiotemporal body movement patterns emerge through fear conditioning. Second, subsequent training to actively avoid threats with naturalistic defensive actions led to a long-term (24 h) reduction of physiological and embodied conditioned responses, while extinction or vicarious training only transiently reduced the responses. Together, our results highlight the role of body movements in human fear memory and its intervention.

A history of avoidance does not impact extinction learning in male rats

Pervasive avoidance is one of the central symptoms of all anxiety-related disorders. In treatment, avoidance behaviors are typically discouraged because they are assumed to maintain anxiety. Yet, it is not clear if engaging in avoidance is always detrimental. In this study, we used a platform-mediated avoidance task to investigate the influence of avoidance history on extinction learning in male rats. Our results show that having the opportunity to avoid during fear acquisition training does not significantly influence the extinction of auditory-cued fear in rats subjected to this platform-mediated avoidance procedure, which constitutes a realistic approach/avoidance conflict. This holds true irrespective of whether or not avoidance was possible during the extinction phase. This suggests that imposing a realistic cost on avoidance behavior prevents the adverse effects that avoidance has been claimed to have on extinction. However, avoidance does not appear to have clear positive effects on extinction learning nor on retention either.

Prefrontal Regulation of Safety Learning during Ethologically Relevant Thermal Threat

Learning and adaptation during sources of threat and safety are critical mechanisms for survival. The prelimbic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) subregions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) have been broadly implicated in the processing of threat and safety. However, how these regions regulate threat and safety during naturalistic conditions involving thermal challenge still remains elusive. To examine this issue, we developed a novel paradigm in which adult mice learned that a particular zone that was identified with visuospatial cues was associated with either a noxious cold temperature ("threat zone") or a pleasant warm temperature ("safety zone"). This led to the rapid development of avoidance behavior when the zone was paired with cold threat or approach behavior when the zone was paired with warm safety. During a long-term test without further thermal reinforcement, mice continued to exhibit robust avoidance or approach to the zone of interest, indicating that enduring spatial-based memories were formed to represent the thermal threat and thermal safety zones. Optogenetic experiments revealed that neural activity in PL and IL was not essential for establishing the memory for the threat zone. However, PL and IL activity bidirectionally regulated memory formation for the safety zone. While IL activity promoted safety memory during normal conditions, PL activity suppressed safety memory especially after a stress pretreatment. Therefore, a working model is proposed in which balanced activity between PL and IL is favorable for safety memory formation, whereas unbalanced activity between these brain regions is detrimental for safety memory after stress.

Sex divergent behavioral responses in platform-mediated avoidance and glucocorticoid receptor blockade

Women are more likely than men to develop anxiety or stress-related disorders. A core behavioral symptom of all anxiety disorders is avoidance of fear or anxiety eliciting cues. Recent rodent models of avoidance show reliable reproduction of this behavioral phenomenon in response to learned aversive associations. Here, a modified version of platform-mediated avoidance that lacked an appetitive task was utilized to investigate the learning and extinction of avoidance in male and female C57BL6/J mice. Here, we found a robust sex difference in the acquisition and extinction of platform-mediated avoidance. Across three experiments, 63.7% of female mice acquired avoidance according to our criterion, whereas 83.8% of males acquired it successfully. Of those females that acquired avoidance, they displayed persistent avoidance after extinction compared to males. Given their role in regulating stress responses and habitual behaviors, we investigated if glucocorticoid receptors (GR) mediated avoidance learning in males and females. We found that a subcutaneous injection (25 mg/kg) of the GR antagonist, RU486 (Mifepristone), significantly reduced persistent avoidance in females but did not further reduce avoidance in males after extinction. These data suggest that GR activation during avoidance learning may contribute to persistent avoidance in females that is resistant to extinction.

Closing the loop in psychiatric deep brain stimulation: physiology, psychometrics, and plasticity

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an invasive approach to precise modulation of psychiatrically relevant circuits. Although it has impressive results in open-label psychiatric trials, DBS has also struggled to scale to and pass through multi-center randomized trials. This contrasts with Parkinson disease, where DBS is an established therapy treating thousands of patients annually. The core difference between these clinical applications is the difficulty of proving target engagement, and of leveraging the wide range of possible settings (parameters) that can be programmed in a given patient's DBS. In Parkinson's, patients' symptoms change rapidly and visibly when the stimulator is tuned to the correct parameters. In psychiatry, those same changes take days to weeks, limiting a clinician's ability to explore parameter space and identify patient-specific optimal settings. I review new approaches to psychiatric target engagement, with an emphasis on major depressive disorder (MDD). Specifically, I argue that better engagement may come by focusing on the root causes of psychiatric illness: dysfunction in specific, measurable cognitive functions and in the connectivity and synchrony of distributed brain circuits. I overview recent progress in both those domains, and how it may relate to other technologies discussed in companion articles in this issue.

Stress, associative learning, and decision-making

Exposure to acute and chronic stress has significant effects on the basic mechanisms of associative learning and memory. Stress can both impair and enhance associative learning depending on type, intensity, and persistence of the stressor, the subject's sex, the context that the stress and behavior is experienced in, and the type of associative learning taking place. In some cases, stress can cause or exacerbate the maladaptive behavior that underlies numerous psychiatric conditions including anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder, and others. Therefore, it is critical to understand how the varied effects of stress, which may normally facilitate adaptive behavior, can also become maladaptive and even harmful. In this review, we highlight several findings of associative learning and decision-making processes that are affected by stress in both human and non-human subjects and how they are related to one another. An emerging theme from this work is that stress biases behavior towards less flexible strategies that may reflect a cautious insensitivity to changing contingencies. We consider how this inflexibility has been observed in different associative learning procedures and suggest that a goal for the field should be to clarify how factors such as sex and previous experience influence this inflexibility.

Sex divergent behavioral responses in platform-mediated avoidance and glucocorticoid receptor blockade

Women are more likely than men to develop anxiety or stress-related disorders. A core behavioral symptom of all anxiety disorders is avoidance of fear or anxiety eliciting cues. Recent rodent models of avoidance show reliable reproduction of this behavioral phenomenon in response to learned aversive associations. Here, a modified version of platform-mediated avoidance that lacked an appetitive task was utilized to investigate the learning and extinction of avoidance in male and female C57BL6/J mice. Here, we found a robust sex difference in the acquisition and extinction of platform-mediated avoidance. Across three experiments, 63.7% of female mice acquired avoidance according to our criterion, whereas 83.8% of males acquired it successfully. Of those females that acquired avoidance, they displayed persistent avoidance after extinction compared to males. Given their role in regulating stress responses and habitual behaviors, we investigated if glucocorticoid receptors (GR) mediated avoidance learning in males and females. Here we found that a subcutaneous injection (25mg/kg) of the GR antagonist, RU486 (mifepristone), significantly reduced persistent avoidance in females but did not further reduce avoidance in males after extinction. These data suggest that GR activation during avoidance learning may contribute to persistent avoidance in females that is resistant to extinction.

From aversive associations to defensive programs: experience-dependent synaptic modifications in the central amygdala

Plasticity elicited by fear conditioning (FC) is thought to support the storage of aversive associative memories. Although work over the past decade has revealed FC-induced plasticity beyond canonical sites in the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA), it is not known whether modifications across distributed circuits make equivalent or distinct contributions to aversive memory. Here, we review evidence demonstrating that experience-dependent synaptic plasticity in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) has a circumscribed role in memory expression per se, guiding the selection of defensive programs in response to acquired threats. We argue that the CeA may be a key example of a broader phenomenon by which synaptic plasticity at specific nodes of a distributed network makes a complementary contribution to distinct memory processes.

Understanding anxiety symptoms as aberrant defensive responding along the threat imminence continuum

Threat-anticipatory defensive responses have evolved to promote survival in a dynamic world. While inherently adaptive, aberrant expression of defensive responses to potential threat could manifest as pathological anxiety, which is prevalent, impairing, and associated with adverse outcomes. Extensive translational neuroscience research indicates that normative defensive responses are organized by threat imminence, such that distinct response patterns are observed in each phase of threat encounter and orchestrated by partially conserved neural circuitry. Anxiety symptoms, such as excessive and pervasive worry, physiological arousal, and avoidance behavior, may reflect aberrant expression of otherwise normative defensive responses, and therefore follow the same imminence-based organization. Here, empirical evidence linking aberrant expression of specific, imminence-dependent defensive responding to distinct anxiety symptoms is reviewed, and plausible contributing neural circuitry is highlighted. Drawing from translational and clinical research, the proposed framework informs our understanding of pathological anxiety by grounding anxiety symptoms in conserved psychobiological mechanisms. Potential implications for research and treatment are discussed.

Developmentally distinct architectures in top-down circuits

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a key role in learning, mood and decision making, including in how individuals respond to threats 1-6 . mPFC undergoes a uniquely protracted development, with changes in synapse density, cortical thickness, long-range connectivity, and neuronal encoding properties continuing into early adulthood 7-21 . Models suggest that before adulthood, the slow-developing mPFC cannot adequately regulate activity in faster-developing subcortical centers 22,23 . They propose that during development, the enhanced influence of subcortical systems underlies distinctive behavioural strategies of juveniles and adolescents and that increasing mPFC control over subcortical structures eventually allows adult behaviours to emerge. Yet it has remained unclear how a progressive strengthening of top-down control can lead to nonlinear changes in behaviour as individuals mature 24,25 . To address this discrepancy, here we monitored and manipulated activity in the developing brain as animals responded to threats, establishing direct causal links between frontolimbic circuit activity and the behavioural strategies of juvenile, adolescent and adult mice. Rather than a linear strengthening of mPFC synaptic connectivity progressively regulating behaviour, we uncovered multiple developmental switches in the behavioural roles of mPFC circuits targeting the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc). We show these changes are accompanied by axonal pruning coinciding with functional strengthening of synaptic connectivity in the mPFC-BLA and mPFC-NAc pathways, which mature at different rates. Our results reveal how developing mPFC circuits pass through distinct architectures that may make them optimally adapted to the demands of age-specific challenges.

Brain-Wide Projections and Differential Encoding of Prefrontal Neuronal Classes Underlying Learned and Innate Threat Avoidance

To understand how the brain produces behavior, we must elucidate the relationships between neuronal connectivity and function. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is critical for complex functions including decision-making and mood. mPFC projection neurons collateralize extensively, but the relationships between mPFC neuronal activity and brain-wide connectivity are poorly understood. We performed whole-brain connectivity mapping and fiber photometry to better understand the mPFC circuits that control threat avoidance in male and female mice. Using tissue clearing and light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM), we mapped the brain-wide axon collaterals of populations of mPFC neurons that project to nucleus accumbens (NAc), ventral tegmental area (VTA), or contralateral mPFC (cmPFC). We present DeepTraCE (deep learning-based tracing with combined enhancement), for quantifying bulk-labeled axonal projections in images of cleared tissue, and DeepCOUNT (deep-learning based counting of objects via 3D U-net pixel tagging), for quantifying cell bodies. Anatomical maps produced with DeepTraCE aligned with known axonal projection patterns and revealed class-specific topographic projections within regions. Using TRAP2 mice and DeepCOUNT, we analyzed whole-brain functional connectivity underlying threat avoidance. PL was the most highly connected node with functional connections to subsets of PL-cPL, PL-NAc, and PL-VTA target sites. Using fiber photometry, we found that during threat avoidance, cmPFC and NAc-projectors encoded conditioned stimuli, but only when action was required to avoid threats. mPFC-VTA neurons encoded learned but not innate avoidance behaviors. Together our results present new and optimized approaches for quantitative whole-brain analysis and indicate that anatomically defined classes of mPFC neurons have specialized roles in threat avoidance.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Understanding how the brain produces complex behaviors requires detailed knowledge of the relationships between neuronal connectivity and function. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a key role in learning, mood, and decision-making, including evaluating and responding to threats. mPFC dysfunction is strongly linked to fear, anxiety and mood disorders. Although mPFC circuits are clear therapeutic targets, gaps in our understanding of how they produce cognitive and emotional behaviors prevent us from designing effective interventions. To address this, we developed a high-throughput analysis pipeline for quantifying bulk-labeled fluorescent axons [DeepTraCE (deep learning-based tracing with combined enhancement)] or cell bodies [DeepCOUNT (deep-learning based counting of objects via 3D U-net pixel tagging)] in intact cleared brains. Using DeepTraCE, DeepCOUNT, and fiber photometry, we performed detailed anatomic and functional mapping of mPFC neuronal classes, identifying specialized roles in threat avoidance.

Dopaminoceptive D1 and D2 neurons in ventral hippocampus arbitrate approach and avoidance in anxiety

The hippocampus 1-7, as well as dopamine circuits 8-11, coordinate decision-making in anxiety-eliciting situations. Yet, little is known about how dopamine modulates hippocampal representations of emotionally-salient stimuli to inform appropriate resolution of approach versus avoidance conflicts. We here study dopaminoceptive neurons in mouse ventral hippocampus (vHipp), molecularly distinguished by their expression of dopamine D1 or D2 receptors. We show that these neurons are transcriptionally distinct and topographically organized across vHipp subfields and cell types. In the ventral subiculum where they are enriched, both D1 and D2 neurons are recruited during anxiogenic exploration, yet with distinct profiles related to investigation and behavioral selection. In turn, they mediate opposite approach/avoidance responses, and are differentially modulated by dopaminergic transmission in that region. Together, these results suggest that vHipp dopamine dynamics gate exploratory behaviors under contextual uncertainty, implicating dopaminoception in the complex computation engaged in vHipp to govern emotional states.

Incidental temporal binding in rats: A novel behavioral task

We designed a behavioral task called One-Trial Trace Escape Reaction (OTTER), in which rats incidentally associate two temporally discontinuous stimuli: a neutral acoustic cue (CS) with an aversive stimulus (US) which occurs two seconds later (CS-2s-US sequence). Rats are first habituated to two similar environmental contexts (A and B), each consisting of an interconnected dark and light chamber. Next, rats experience the CS-2s-US sequence in the dark chamber of one of the contexts (either A or B); the US is terminated immediately after a rat escapes into the light chamber. The CS-2s-US sequence is presented only once to ensure the incidental acquisition of the association. The recall is tested 24 h later when rats are presented with only the CS in the alternate context (B or A), and their behavioral response is observed. Our results show that 59% of the rats responded to the CS by escaping to the light chamber, although they experienced only one CS-2s-US pairing. The OTTER task offers a flexible high throughput tool to study memory acquired incidentally after a single experience. Incidental one-trial acquisition of association between temporally discontinuous events may be one of the essential components of episodic memory formation.

The effects of stress on avoidance in rodents: An unresolved matter

In the face of a possible threat, a range of physiological (e.g., increased heart rate) and behavioral (e.g., avoidance or escape) responses are recruited. Here, we will focus on avoidance, in its persistent form one of the core symptoms of anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The initial goal of fear and avoidance responses is to increase survival, but if they become persistent or overgeneralize, they can disrupt normal daily functioning, and ultimately even result in anxiety-related disorders. Relatedly, acute stress responses promote adaptation and survival, while chronic stress has been found to aggravate pathophysiology. Thus, stress might trigger the transition from adaptive to maladaptive responses, e.g., from goal-directed to persistent avoidance. Animal models are prime tools to unravel if and how stress influences avoidance. This is typically done by performing stress inductions prior to the assessment of (passive or active) avoidance behavior. Despite its clinical relevance, the current literature on this topic is fragmented, and an overall conclusion is lacking. In this Review, we first recapitulate the state of the art regarding stress and active as well as passive avoidance procedures. We then summarize the behavioral effects of acute and chronic stress on active and passive avoidance, and discuss the main neurobiological findings of the field. Finally, we highlight possible reasons for the largely contradictory findings in the literature and we propose strategies to further unravel the effect of stress on avoidance behavior. A deeper understanding of this currently unresolved matter may provide further insights in the etiology and treatment of anxiety-related disorders.

Roadbumps at the Crossroads of Integrating Behavioral and In Vitro Approaches for Neurotoxicity Assessment

With the appreciation that behavior represents the integration and complexity of the nervous system, neurobehavioral phenotyping and assessment has seen a renaissance over the last couple of decades, resulting in a robust database on rodent performance within various testing paradigms, possible associations with human disorders, and therapeutic interventions. The interchange of data across behavior and other test modalities and multiple model systems has advanced our understanding of fundamental biology and mechanisms associated with normal functions and alterations in the nervous system. While there is a demonstrated value and power of neurobehavioral assessments for examining alterations due to genetic manipulations, maternal factors, early development environment, the applied use of behavior to assess environmental neurotoxicity continues to come under question as to whether behavior represents a sensitive endpoint for assessment. Why is rodent behavior a sensitive tool to the neuroscientist and yet, not when used in pre-clinical or chemical neurotoxicity studies? Applying new paradigms and evidence on the biological basis of behavior to neurobehavioral testing requires expertise and refinement of how such experiments are conducted to minimize variability and maximize information. This review presents relevant issues of methods used to conduct such test, sources of variability, experimental design, data analysis, interpretation, and reporting. It presents beneficial and critical limitations as they translate to the in vivo environment and considers the need to integrate across disciplines for the best value. It proposes that a refinement of behavioral assessments and understanding of subtle pronounced differences will facilitate the integration of data obtained across multiple approaches and to address issues of translation.

Role of Stress-Related Dopamine Transmission in Building and Maintaining a Protective Cognitive Reserve

This short review presents the hypothesis that stress-dependent dopamine (DA) transmission contributes to developing and maintaining the brain network supporting a cognitive reserve. Research has shown that people with a greater cognitive reserve are better able to avoid symptoms of degenerative brain changes. The paper will review evidence that: (1) successful adaptation to stressors involves development and stabilization of effective but flexible coping strategies; (2) this process requires dynamic reorganization of functional networks in the adult brain; (3) DA transmission is amongst the principal mediators of this process; (4) age- and disease-dependent cognitive impairment is associated with dysfunctional connectivity both between and within these same networks as well as with reduced DA transmission.

The prefrontal cortex, pathological anxiety, and anxiety disorders

Anxiety is experienced in response to threats that are distal or uncertain, involving changes in one's subjective state, autonomic responses, and behavior. Defensive and physiologic responses to threats that involve the amygdala and brainstem are conserved across species. While anxiety responses typically serve an adaptive purpose, when excessive, unregulated, and generalized, they can become maladaptive, leading to distress and avoidance of potentially threatening situations. In primates, anxiety can be regulated by the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which has expanded in evolution. This prefrontal expansion is thought to underlie primates' increased capacity to engage high-level regulatory strategies aimed at coping with and modifying the experience of anxiety. The specialized primate lateral, medial, and orbital PFC sectors are connected with association and limbic cortices, the latter of which are connected with the amygdala and brainstem autonomic structures that underlie emotional and physiological arousal. PFC pathways that interface with distinct inhibitory systems within the cortex, the amygdala, or the thalamus can regulate responses by modulating neuronal output. Within the PFC, pathways connecting cortical regions are poised to reduce noise and enhance signals for cognitive operations that regulate anxiety processing and autonomic drive. Specialized PFC pathways to the inhibitory thalamic reticular nucleus suggest a mechanism to allow passage of relevant signals from thalamus to cortex, and in the amygdala to modulate the output to autonomic structures. Disruption of specific nodes within the PFC that interface with inhibitory systems can affect the negative bias, failure to regulate autonomic arousal, and avoidance that characterize anxiety disorders.

Environmental certainty influences the neural systems regulating responses to threat and stress

Flexible calibration of threat responding in accordance with the environment is an adaptive process that allows an animal to avoid harm while also maintaining engagement of other goal-directed actions. This calibration process, referred to as threat response regulation, requires an animal to calculate the probability that a given encounter will result in a threat so they can respond accordingly. Here we review the neural correlates of two highly studied forms of threat response suppression: extinction and safety conditioning. We focus on how relative levels of certainty or uncertainty in the surrounding environment alter the acquisition and application of these processes. We also discuss evidence indicating altered threat response regulation following stress exposure, including enhanced fear conditioning, and disrupted extinction and safety conditioning. To conclude, we discuss research using an animal model of coping that examines the impact of stressor controllability on threat responding, highlighting the potential for previous experiences with control, or other forms of coping, to protect against the effects of future adversity.

Extinction trial spacing across days differentially impacts fear regulation in adult and adolescent male mice

Fear regulation changes as a function of age and adolescence is a key developmental period for the continued maturation of fear neural circuitry. A consistent finding in the literature is diminished extinction retention in adolescents. However, these studies often directly compare adolescents to adults using a single protocol and therefore provide little insight into learning parameters that improve adolescent fear regulation. Studies in adults highlight the benefits of spaced learning over massed learning. These findings have been extended to fear regulation, with adult rodents exhibiting improved extinction learning and retention when cues are distributed over days versus a single session. However, similar studies have not been performed in adolescents. Here, we systematically examine the impact of trial spacing across days on fear regulation. Adolescent or adult male mice were exposed to one of three extinction paradigms that presented the same number of trials but differed in the temporal distribution of trials across days (one day, two days, or four days). We found that introducing consolidation events into the protocol improves adult extinction learning and short-term extinction retention but these effects disappear after two weeks. For adolescents, all three protocols were comparably effective in reducing freezing across extinction training and improved retention at both short-term and long-term fear recall time points relative to extinction-naive mice. These findings suggest that extinction protocols that incorporate consolidation events are optimal for adults but additional booster training may be required for enduring efficacy. In contrast, protocols incorporating either massed or spaced presentations show immediate and enduring benefits for adolescents.

Fear extinction learning and retention during adolescence in rats and mice: A systematic review

Despite exposure-based treatments being recommended for anxiety disorders, these treatments are ineffective for over half of all adolescents who receive them. The limited efficacy of exposure during adolescence may be driven by a deficit in extinction. Although indications of diminished extinction learning during adolescence were first reported over 10 years ago, these findings have yet to be reviewed and compared. This review (k = 34) found a stark inter-species difference in extinction performance: studies of adolescent mice reported deficits in extinction learning and retention of both cued and context fear. In contrast, studies of adolescent rats only reported poor extinction retention specific to cued fear. Adolescent mice and rats appeared to have only one behavioral outcome in common, being poor extinction retention of cued fear. These findings suggest that different behavioral phenotypes are present across rodent species in adolescence and highlight that preclinical work in rats and mice is not interchangeable. Further investigation of these differences offers the opportunity to better understand the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of fear-based disorders.

Protective effect of alpha-lipoic acid on bisphenol A-induced learning and memory impairment in developing mice: nNOS and keap1/Nrf2 pathway

The adverse effects of bisphenol A (BPA) on learning and memory may be related with oxidative stress, but the mechanisms are unclear. This study aimed to investigate the mechanism of damaged learning and memory caused by BPA through inducing oxidative stress, as well as to explore whether alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) show a protective action. Female mice were exposed to 0.1 μg/mL BPA, 0.2 μg/mL BPA, 0.6 mg/mL ALA, and 0.2 BPA + ALA through drinking water for 8 weeks. The results showed that ALA protected against the impairment of spatial, recognition, and avoidance memory caused by BPA. ALA replenished the reduce of hippocampus coefficient, serum estradiol (E2) level, and hippocampal neurotransmitters levels induced by BPA. ALA alleviated BPA-induced oxidative stress and hippocampal histological changes. BPA exposure reduced the levels of synaptic structural proteins and PKC/ERK/CREB pathway proteins, and ALA improved these reductions. ALA altered the protein levels of nNOS and keap1/Nrf2 pathway affected by BPA. Our results suggested that impairments of learning and memory caused by BPA was related to the damage of hippocampal synapses mediated by oxidative stress, and ALA protected learning and memory by reducing the oxidative stress induced by BPA through regulating the nNOS and keap1/Nrf2 pathway.

Lateral Habenula Mediates Defensive Responses Only When Threat and Safety Memories Are in Conflict

Survival depends on the ability to adaptively react or execute actions based on previous aversive salient experiences. Although lateral habenula (LHb) activity has been broadly implicated in the regulation of aversively motivated responses, it is not clear under which conditions this brain structure is necessary to regulate defensive responses to a threat. To address this issue, we combined pharmacological inactivations with behavioral tasks that involve aversive and appetitive events and evaluated defensive responses in rats. We found that LHb pharmacological inactivation did not affect cued threat conditioning (fear) and extinction (safety) learning and memory, anxiety-like or reward-seeking behaviors. Surprisingly, we found that LHb inactivation abolished reactive defensive responses (tone-elicited freezing) only when threat (conditioning) and safety memories (extinction and latent inhibition) compete during retrieval. Consistently, we found that LHb inactivation impaired active defensive responses [platform-mediated avoidance (PMA)], thereby biasing choice behavior (between avoiding a threat or approaching food) toward reward-seeking responses. Together, our findings suggest that LHb activity mediates defensive responses only when guided by competing threat and safety memories, consequently revealing a previously uncharacterized role for LHb in experience-dependent emotional conflict.

Medial prefrontal cortical control of reward- and aversion-based behavioral output: Bottom-up modulation

How does the brain guide our actions? This is a complex issue, where the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a crucial role. The mPFC is essential for cognitive flexibility and decision making. These functions are related to reward- and aversion-based learning, which ultimately drive behavior. Though, cortical projections and modulatory systems that may regulate those processes in the mPFC are less understood. How does the mPFC regulate approach-avoidance behavior in the case of conflicting aversive and appetitive stimuli? This is likely dependent on the bottom-up neuromodulation of the mPFC projection neurons. In this review, we integrate behavioral-, pharmacological-, and viral-based circuit manipulation data showing the involvement of mPFC dopaminergic, noradrenergic, cholinergic, and serotoninergic inputs in reward and aversion processing. Given that an incorrect balance of reward and aversion value could be a key problem in mental diseases such as substance use disorders, we discuss outstanding questions for future research on the role of mPFC modulation in reward and aversion.

Neural Computations of Threat

A host of learning, memory, and decision-making processes form the individual's response to threat and may be disrupted in anxiety and post-trauma psychopathology. Here we review the neural computations of threat, from the first encounter with a dangerous situation, through learning, storing, and updating cues that predict it, to making decisions about the optimal course of action. The overview highlights the interconnected nature of these processes and their reliance on shared neural and computational mechanisms. We propose an integrative approach to the study of threat-related processes, in which specific computations are studied across the various stages of threat experience rather than in isolation. This approach can generate new insights about the evolution, diagnosis, and treatment of threat-related psychopathology.

Deep brain stimulation for psychiatric disorders: From focal brain targets to cognitive networks

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising intervention for treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders, particularly major depressive disorder (MDD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Up to 90% of patients who have not recovered with therapy or medication have reported benefit from DBS in open-label studies. Response rates in randomized controlled trials (RCTs), however, have been much lower. This has been argued to arise from surgical variability between sites, and recent psychiatric DBS research has focused on refining targeting through personalized imaging. Much less attention has been given to the fact that psychiatric disorders arise from dysfunction in distributed brain networks, and that DBS likely acts by altering communication within those networks. This is in part because psychiatric DBS research relies on subjective rating scales that make it difficult to identify network biomarkers. Here, we overview recent DBS RCT results in OCD and MDD, as well as the follow-on imaging studies. We present evidence for a new approach to studying DBS' mechanisms of action, focused on measuring objective cognitive/emotional deficits that underpin these and many other mental disorders. Further, we suggest that a focus on cognition could lead to reliable network biomarkers at an electrophysiologic level, especially those related to inter-regional synchrony of the local field potential (LFP). Developing the network neuroscience of DBS has the potential to finally unlock the potential of this highly specific therapy.

Animal Models for OCD Research

OCD has lagged behind other psychiatric illnesses in the identification of molecular treatment targets, due in part to a lack of significant findings in genome-wide association studies. However, while progress in this area is being made, OCD's symptoms of obsessions, compulsions, and anxiety can be deconstructed into distinct neural functions that can be dissected in animal models. Studies in rodents and non-human primates have highlighted the importance of cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic circuits in OCD pathophysiology, and emerging studies in human post-mortem brain tissue point to glutamatergic synapse abnormalities as a potential cellular substrate for observed dysfunctional behaviors. In addition, accumulated evidence points to a potential role for neuromodulators including serotonin and dopamine in both OCD pathology and treatment. Here, we review current efforts to use animal models for the identification of molecules, cell types, and circuits relevant to OCD pathophysiology. We start by describing features of OCD that can be modeled in animals, including circuit abnormalities and genetic findings. We then review different strategies that have been used to study OCD using animal model systems, including transgenic models, circuit manipulations, and dissection of OCD-relevant neural constructs. Finally, we discuss how these findings may ultimately help to develop new treatment strategies for OCD and other related disorders.

Potential roles of the rodent medial prefrontal cortex in conflict resolution between multiple decision-making systems

Mammalian decision-making is mediated by the interaction of multiple, neurally and computationally separable decision systems. Having multiple systems requires a mechanism to manage conflict and converge onto the selection of singular actions. A long history of evidence has pointed to the prefrontal cortex as a central component in processing the interactions between distinct decision systems and resolving conflicts among them. In this chapter we review four theories of how that interaction might occur and identify how the medial prefrontal cortex in the rodent may be involved in each theory. We then present experimental predictions implied by the neurobiological data in the context of each theory as a starting point for future investigation of medial prefrontal cortex and decision-making.

Divergent projections of the prelimbic cortex bidirectionally regulate active avoidance

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) integrates incoming information to guide our actions. When motivation for food-seeking competes with avoidance of danger, the PFC likely plays a role in selecting the optimal choice. In platform-mediated active avoidance, rats avoid a tone-signaled footshock by stepping onto a nearby platform, delaying access to sucrose pellets. This avoidance requires prelimbic (PL) PFC, basolateral amygdala (BLA), and ventral striatum (VS). We previously showed that inhibitory tone responses of PL neurons correlate with avoidability of shock (Diehl et al., 2018). Here, we optogenetically modulated PL terminals in VS and BLA to identify PL outputs regulating avoidance. Photoactivating PL-VS projections reduced avoidance, whereas photoactivating PL-BLA projections increased avoidance. Moreover, photosilencing PL-BLA or BLA-VS projections reduced avoidance, suggesting that VS receives opposing inputs from PL and BLA. Bidirectional modulation of avoidance by PL projections to VS and BLA enables the animal to make appropriate decisions when faced with competing drives.