Suppression of conditioning to ambiguous cues by pharmacogenetic inhibition of the dentate gyrus.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Tsetsenis T
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2836794 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Fear learning is highly adaptive if utilized in appropriate situations but can lead to generalized anxiety if applied too widely. A role of predictive cues in inhibiting fear generalization has been suggested by stress and fear learning studies, but the effects of partially predictive cues (ambiguous cues) and the neuronal populations responsible for linking the predictive ability of cues and generalization of fear responses are unknown. Here, we show that inhibition of adult neurogenesis in the mouse dentate gyrus decreases hippocampal network activation and reduces defensive behavior to ambiguous threat cues but has neither of these effects if the same negative experience is reliably predicted. Additionally, we find that this ambiguity related to negative events determines their effect on fear generalization, that is, how the events affect future behavior under novel conditions. Both new neurons and glucocorticoid hormones are required for the enhancement of fear generalization following an unpredictably cued threat. Thus, adult neurogenesis plays a central role in the adaptive changes resulting from experience involving unpredictable or ambiguous threat cues, optimizing behavior in novel and uncertain situations.
| S-EPMC5384657 | biostudies-literature
Project description:[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2001154.].
| S-EPMC5423549 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Although hippocampal neurogenesis has been described in many adult mammals, the functional impact of this process on physiology and behavior remains unclear. In the present study, we used two independent methods to ablate hippocampal neurogenesis and found that each procedure caused a limited behavioral deficit and a loss of synaptic plasticity within the dentate gyrus. Specifically, focal X irradiation of the hippocampus or genetic ablation of glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive neural progenitor cells impaired contextual fear conditioning but not cued conditioning. Hippocampal-dependent spatial learning tasks such as the Morris water maze and Y maze were unaffected. These findings show that adult-born neurons make a distinct contribution to some but not all hippocampal functions. In a parallel set of experiments, we show that long-term potentiation elicited in the dentate gyrus in the absence of GABA blockers requires the presence of new neurons, as it is eliminated by each of our ablation procedures. These data show that new hippocampal neurons can be preferentially recruited over mature granule cells in vitro and may provide a framework for how this small cell population can influence behavior.
| S-EPMC1859958 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Dentate gyrus (DG) is widely thought to provide a teaching signal that enables hippocampal encoding of memories, but its role during retrieval is poorly understood. Some data and models suggest that DG plays no role in retrieval; others encourage the opposite conclusion. To resolve this controversy, we evaluated the effects of optogenetic inhibition of dorsal DG during context fear conditioning, recall, generalization, and extinction in male mice. We found that (1) inhibition during training impaired context fear acquisition; (2) inhibition during recall did not impair fear expression in the training context, unless mice had to distinguish between similar feared and neutral contexts; (3) inhibition increased generalization of fear to an unfamiliar context that was similar to a feared one and impaired fear expression in the conditioned context when it was similar to a neutral one; and (4) inhibition impaired fear extinction. These effects, as well as several seemingly contradictory published findings, could be reproduced by BACON (Bayesian Context Fear Algorithm), a physiologically realistic hippocampal model positing that acquisition and retrieval both involve coordinated activity in DG and CA3. Our findings thus suggest that DG contributes to retrieval and extinction, as well as to the initial establishment of context fear.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Despite abundant evidence that the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) plays a critical role in memory, it remains unclear whether the role of DG relates to memory acquisition or retrieval. Using contextual fear conditioning and optogenetic inhibition, we show that DG contributes to both of these processes. Using computational simulations, we identify specific mechanisms through which the suppression of DG affects memory performance. Finally, we show that DG contributes to fear extinction learning, a process in which learned fear is attenuated through exposures to a fearful context in the absence of threat. Our data resolve a long-standing question about the role of DG in memory and provide insight into how disorders affecting DG, including aging, stress, and depression, influence cognitive processes.
| S-EPMC5490069 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Gamma oscillations (30-150 Hz) in neuronal networks are associated with the processing and recall of information. We measured local field potentials in the dentate gyrus of freely moving mice and found that gamma activity occurs in bursts, which are highly heterogeneous in their spatial extensions, ranging from focal to global coherent events. Synaptic communication among perisomatic-inhibitory interneurons (PIIs) is thought to play an important role in the generation of hippocampal gamma patterns. However, how neuronal circuits can generate synchronous oscillations at different spatial scales is unknown. We analyzed paired recordings in dentate gyrus slices and show that synaptic signaling at interneuron-interneuron synapses is distance dependent. Synaptic strength declines whereas the duration of inhibitory signals increases with axonal distance among interconnected PIIs. Using neuronal network modeling, we show that distance-dependent inhibition generates multiple highly synchronous focal gamma bursts allowing the network to process complex inputs in parallel in flexibly organized neuronal centers.Perisomatic-inhibitory interneurons (PIIs) contribute to the generation of gamma oscillations in the hippocampus. Here the authors demonstrate distance-dependent inhibition between PIIs in freely moving mice, and use computational analysis to show that distance-dependent inhibition supports the emergence of focal gamma bursts.
| S-EPMC5624961 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The hippocampus is critical for the acquisition and retrieval of episodic and contextual memories. Lesions of the dentate gyrus, a principal input of the hippocampus, block memory acquisition, but it remains unclear whether this region also plays a role in memory retrieval. Here we combine cell-type specific neural inhibition with electrophysiological measurements of learning-associated plasticity in behaving mice to demonstrate that dentate gyrus granule cells are not required for memory retrieval, but instead have an unexpected role in memory maintenance. Furthermore, we demonstrate the translational potential of our findings by showing that pharmacological activation of an endogenous inhibitory receptor expressed selectively in dentate gyrus granule cells can induce a rapid loss of hippocampal memory. These findings open a new avenue for the targeted erasure of episodic and contextual memories.
| S-EPMC4802048 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Excitatory hilar mossy cells (MCs) in the dentate gyrus receive inputs from dentate granule cells (GCs) and project back to GCs locally, contralaterally, and along the longitudinal axis of the hippocampus, thereby establishing an associative positive-feedback loop and connecting functionally diverse hippocampal areas. MCs also synapse with GABAergic interneurons that mediate feed-forward inhibition onto GCs. Surprisingly, although these circuits have been implicated in both memory formation (e.g., pattern separation) and temporal lobe epilepsy, little is known about activity-dependent plasticity of their synaptic connections. Here, we report that MC-GC synapses undergo a presynaptic, NMDA-receptor-independent form of long-term potentiation (LTP) that requires postsynaptic brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)/TrkB and presynaptic cyclic AMP (cAMP)/PKA signaling. This LTP is input specific and selectively expressed at MC-GC synapses, but not at the disynaptic inhibitory loop. By increasing the excitation/inhibition balance, MC-GC LTP enhances GC output at the associative MC-GC recurrent circuit and may contribute to dentate-dependent forms of learning and epilepsy.
| S-EPMC5609819 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Remembering the location of food is essential for survival. Rodents and humans employ mainly hippocampus-dependent spatial strategies, but when being stressed they shift to striatum-mediated stimulus-based strategies. To investigate underlying brain circuits, we tested mice with a heightened stress susceptibility due to a lack of the GABA-synthetizing enzyme GAD65 (GAD65-/- mice) in a dual solution task. Here, GAD65-/- mice preferred to locate a food reward in an open field via a proximal cue, while their wildtype littermates preferred a spatial strategy. The analysis of cFos co-activation across brain regions and of stress-induced mRNA expression changes of GAD65 pointed towards the hippocampal dorsal dentate gyrus (dDG) as a central structure for mediating stress effects on strategy choices via GAD65. Reducing the GAD65 expression locally in the dDG by a shRNA mediated knock down was sufficient to replicate the phenotype of the global GAD65 knock out and to increase dDG excitability. Using DREADD vectors to specifically interfere with dDG circuit activity during dual solution retrieval but not learning confirmed that the dDG modulates strategy choices and that a balanced excitability of this structure is necessary to establish spatial strategy preference. These data highlight the dDG as a critical hub for choosing between spatial and non-spatial foraging strategies.
| S-EPMC9357949 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Neurons are born and become a functional part of the synaptic circuitry in adult brains. The proliferative phase of neurogenesis has been extensively reviewed. We therefore focus this review on a few topics addressing the functional role of adult-generated newborn neurons in the dentate gyrus. We discuss the evidence for a link between neurogenesis and behavior. We then describe the steps in the integration of newborn neurons into a functioning mature synaptic circuit. Given the profound effects of neural activity on the differentiation and integration of newborn neurons, we discuss the role of activity-dependent gene expression in the birth and maturation of newborn neurons. The differentiation and maturation of newborn neurons likely involves the concerted action of many genes. Thus we focus on transcription factors that can direct large changes to the transcriptome, and microRNAs, a newly-discovered class of molecules that can effect the expression of hundreds of genes. How microRNAs affect the generation and integration of newborn neurons is just being explored, but there are compelling clues hinting at their involvement.
| S-EPMC3153561 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundSchizophrenia is associated with robust hippocampal volume deficits but subregion volume deficits, their associations with cognition, and contributing genes remain to be determined.MethodsHippocampal formation (HF) subregion volumes were obtained using FreeSurfer 6.0 from individuals with schizophrenia (n = 176, mean age ± s.d. = 39.0 ± 11.5, 132 males) and healthy volunteers (n = 173, mean age ± s.d. = 37.6 ± 11.3, 123 males) with similar mean age, gender, handedness, and race distributions. Relationships between the HF subregion volume with the largest between group difference, neuropsychological performance, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms were assessed.ResultsThis study found a significant group by region interaction on hippocampal subregion volumes. Compared to healthy volunteers, individuals with schizophrenia had significantly smaller dentate gyrus (DG) (Cohen's d = -0.57), Cornu Ammonis (CA) 4, molecular layer of the hippocampus, hippocampal tail, and CA 1 volumes, when statistically controlling for intracranial volume; DG (d = -0.43) and CA 4 volumes remained significantly smaller when statistically controlling for mean hippocampal volume. DG volume showed the largest between group difference and significant positive associations with visual memory and speed of processing in the overall sample. Genome-wide association analysis with DG volume as the quantitative phenotype identified rs56055643 (β = 10.8, p < 5 × 10-8, 95% CI 7.0-14.5) on chromosome 3 in high linkage disequilibrium with MOBP. Gene-based analyses identified associations between SLC25A38 and RPSA and DG volume.ConclusionsThis study suggests that DG dysfunction is fundamentally involved in schizophrenia pathophysiology, that it may contribute to cognitive abnormalities in schizophrenia, and that underlying biological mechanisms may involve contributions from MOBP, SLC25A38, and RPSA.
| S-EPMC7068799 | biostudies-literature