Transcriptional characterization of mPFCs
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE134808 | GEO | 2019/08/20
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Fear extinction is an adaptive behavioral process critical for organism’s survival, but deficiency in extinction may lead to PTSD. While the amygdala and its neural circuits are critical for fear extinction, the molecular identity and organizational logic of cell types that lie at the core of these circuits remain unclear. Here we report that mice deficient for amygdala-enriched gastrin-releasing peptide gene (Grp-/-) exhibit enhanced neuronal activity in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and stronger fear conditioning, as well as deficient extinction in stress-enhanced fear learning (SEFL). rAAV2-retro-based tracing combined with visualization of the GFP knocked in the Grp gene showed that BLA receives several GRPergic conditioned stimulus projections: from the indirect auditory thalamus-to-auditory cortex pathway, medial prefrontal cortex, ventral hippocampus and ventral tegmental area. Transcription of dopamine-related genes was decreased in BLA of Grp-/- mice following SEFL extinction recall, suggesting that the GRP may mediate fear extinction regulation by dopamine.
2021-12-01 | GSE164226 | GEO
Project description:Extinction learning refers to the phenomenon that a previously learned response to an environmental stimulus, for example the expression of an aversive behavior upon exposure to a specific context, is reduced when the stimulus is repeatedly presented in the absence of a previously paired aversive event. Extinction of fear memories has been implicated with the treatment of anxiety disease but the molecular processes that underlie fear extinctionare only beginning to emerge. Here we show that fear extinction initiates up-regulation of hippocampal insulin-growth factor 2 (Igf2) and down-regulation of insulin-growth factor binding protein 7 (Igfbp7). In line with this observation we demonstrate that IGF2 facilitates fear extinction, while IGFBP7 impairs fear extinction in an IGF2-dependent manner. Furthermore, we identify one cellular substrate of altered IGF2-signaling during fear extinction. To this end we show that fear extinction-induced IGF2/IGFBP7-signaling promotes the survival of 17-19 day-old newborn hippocampal neurons. In conclusion, our data suggests that therapeutic strategies that enhance IGF2-signaling and adult neurogenesis might be suitable to treat disease linked to excessive fear memory. We employed mice to investigate fear extinction in the hippocampus-dependent contextual fear conditioning paradigm. To this end, male C57BL/6J mice were exposed to the fear conditioning box (context) followed by an electric foot-shock which elicits the acquisition of conditioned contextual fear. For extinction training animals were repeatedly reexposed to the conditioned context on consecutive days (24h interval) without receiving the footshockagain (extinction trial, E). This procedure eventually results in the decline of the aversive freezing behavior. Mice that were exposed to the conditioning context without receiving fear conditioning training served as control groups. To gain a better understanding of the molecular processes underlying fear extinction we performed a genome-wide analysis of the hippocampal transcriptome during fear extinction. In the employed paradigm fear extinction is a gradual process. To capture the longitudinal course of fear extinction we decided to perform hippocampal microarray analysis at two time points: (1) After the first extinction trial (E1) when animals display high levels of aversive freezing behavior and (2) at the extinction trial on which the freezing behavior was significantly reduced when compared to E1. This extinction trial, in the case of this experiment E5, we termed “extinction trial low freezing” (ELF). Mice that were exposed to the conditioning context without receiving fear conditioning training served as control groups (3). For all three groups we hybridized 5 samples (biological replicates).
2011-08-07 | E-GEOD-31063 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Background: Extinction-based exposure therapy is used in treating anxiety- and trauma-related disorders, however there is the need to improve its limited efficacy in individuals with impaired fear extinction learning and to facilitate the inadequate protection against return-of-fear phenomena. Methods: Spontaneous recovery and fear renewal tests, assessed persistence and context-independence of treatments rescuing deficient fear extinction in 129S1/SvImJ mice. To reveal neurobiological mechanisms supporting long-lasting extinction rescue, whole-genome expression profiling, qRT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and chromatin immunoprecipitation were used. Results: Persistent and context-independent rescue of deficient fear extinction induced by dietary zinc-restriction was associated with enhanced expression of dopamine-related genes, such as genes encoding the dopamine- D1 (Drd1a) and -D2 (Drd2) receptor in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and amygdala. Moreover, enhanced histone acetylation was observed in the promoter of the extinction-regulated Drd2 gene in the mPFC, revealing a possibly involved gene regulatory mechanism. While enhancing histone acetylation, via administering the HDAC inhibitor MS275, does not induce successful fear reduction during extinction training, it promoted enduring and context-independent rescue of deficient fear extinction consolidation/retrieval once extinction learning was initiated. This was associated with enhanced neuronal histone acetylation in the mPFC and amygdala. Finally, as a proof of principle, mimicking enhanced dopaminergic signaling by L-dopa treatment rescued deficient fear extinction and co-administration of MS-275 rendered this effect enduring and context-independent. Conclusion: Current data reveal that combining dopaminergic and epigenetic mechanisms is a promising strategy to improve exposure-based behavior therapy in extinction-impaired individuals by initiating the formation of an enduring and context-independent fear inhibitory memory.
2016-12-21 | GSE76103 | GEO
Project description:Background: Extinction-based exposure therapy is used in treating anxiety- and trauma-related disorders, however there is the need to improve its limited efficacy in individuals with impaired fear extinction learning and to facilitate the inadequate protection against return-of-fear phenomena. Methods: Spontaneous recovery and fear renewal tests, assessed persistence and context-independence of treatments rescuing deficient fear extinction in 129S1/SvImJ mice. To reveal neurobiological mechanisms supporting long-lasting extinction rescue, whole-genome expression profiling, qRT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and chromatin immunoprecipitation were used. Results: Persistent and context-independent rescue of deficient fear extinction induced by dietary zinc-restriction was associated with enhanced expression of dopamine-related genes, such as genes encoding the dopamine- D1 (Drd1a) and -D2 (Drd2) receptor in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and amygdala. Moreover, enhanced histone acetylation was observed in the promoter of the extinction-regulated Drd2 gene in the mPFC, revealing a possibly involved gene regulatory mechanism. While enhancing histone acetylation, via administering the HDAC inhibitor MS275, does not induce successful fear reduction during extinction training, it promoted enduring and context-independent rescue of deficient fear extinction consolidation/retrieval once extinction learning was initiated. This was associated with enhanced neuronal histone acetylation in the mPFC and amygdala. Finally, as a proof of principle, mimicking enhanced dopaminergic signaling by L-dopa treatment rescued deficient fear extinction and co-administration of MS-275 rendered this effect enduring and context-independent. Conclusion: Current data reveal that combining dopaminergic and epigenetic mechanisms is a promising strategy to improve exposure-based behavior therapy in extinction-impaired individuals by initiating the formation of an enduring and context-independent fear inhibitory memory.
2016-12-21 | GSE76108 | GEO
Project description:The suppression of fear memory in the absence of danger (fear extinction) requires coordinated neural activity within the amygdala and medial prefrontal (prelimbic and infralimbic) cortex. Any behavior has a transcriptomic signature that is modified by environmental experiences, and specific genes are involved in functional plasticity and synaptic wiring during fear memory and extinction. In the present study, we investigated the effects of optogenetic manipulations of prelimbic pyramidal neurons on amygdala gene expression to analyze the specific transcriptional pathways involved in fear extinction. To this aim, transgenic mice (Thy1-COP4) having cortical and amygdala pyramidal neurons optogenetically excitable were (or not) fear-conditioned. During the extinction phase, the mice received optogenetic (or sham) stimulations to maintain the activation of the prelimbic pyramidal neurons and impair fear extinction. At the end of behavioral testing, electrophysiological (Excitatory Post-Synaptic Currents) and morphological (spinogenesis) correlates were evaluated in the pyramidal neurons of prelimbic cortex. Furthermore, transcriptomic cell-specific RNA-analyses (differential gene expression profiling and functional enrichment analyses) were performed in amygdala pyramidal neurons. Results demonstrate that pyramidal neurons of prelimbic cortex are involved in modulation of the fear responses during extinction phase and their optogenetic stimulation in fear-conditioned mice results in strong modifications of the amygdala transcriptome. Understanding the transcriptomic architecture of fear extinction may facilitate the comprehension of fear-related disorders.
2021-01-14 | GSE162417 | GEO
Project description:Social interactions are critical components for the survival of mammalian biology and evolution. Dysregulation of social behavior often leads to psychopathologies such as social anxiety disorder, which is characterized by an intense fear and avoidance of social situations. Using the social fear conditioning (SFC) paradigm, we analyzed expression levels of miR-132-3p and miR-124-3p within the septum, a brain region essential for social behavior and fear, after acquisition and extinction of social fear. Functional in vivo approaches using pharmacology, functional inhibition of miR-132-3p, viral miR-132 overexpression and shRNA-mediated knockdown of miR-132-3p within oxytocin receptor positive neurons confirmed septal miR-132-3p to be involved in social fear extinction and the oxytocin-mediated reversal of social fear. Moreover, Argonaute-RNA-co-immunoprecipitation-microarray analysis and further target mRNA quantification, depicted growth differentiation factor-5 (GDF-5) to be involved in miR-132-3p-mediated regulation of social fear extinction. Local application of GDF-5 resulted in impaired social fear extinction, an effect which seems to be mediated by miR-132-3p. In summary, we show that septal miR-132-3p is functionally involved in social fear extinction learning and oxytocin-mediated reversal of social fear.
2023-11-08 | GSE211449 | GEO
Project description:Understanding the mechanisms by which long-term memories are formed and stored in the brain represents a central aim of neuroscience. Prevailing theory suggests that long-term memory encoding involves early plasticity within hippocampal circuits, while reorganization of the neocortex is thought to occur weeks to months later to subserve remote memory storage. Here we report that long-term memory encoding can elicit early transcriptional, structural and functional remodeling of the neocortex. Parallel studies using genome-wide RNA-sequencing, ultrastructural imaging, and whole-cell recording in wild-type mice suggest that contextual fear conditioning initiates a transcriptional program in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) that is accompanied by rapid expansion of the synaptic active zone and postsynaptic density, enhanced dendritic spine plasticity, and increased synaptic efficacy. To address the real-time contribution of the mPFC to long-term memory encoding, we performed temporally precise optogenetic inhibition of excitatory mPFC neurons during contextual fear conditioning. Using this approach, we found that real-time inhibition of the mPFC inhibited activation of the entorhinal-hippocampal circuit and impaired the formation of long-term associative memory. These findings suggest that encoding of long-term episodic memory is associated with early remodeling of neocortical circuits, identify the prefrontal cortex as a critical regulator of encoding-induced hippocampal activation and long-term memory formation, and have important implications for understanding memory processing in healthy and diseased brain states. 4 biological replicates per group were analyzed. The material analyzed was medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC; anterior cingulate cortex subregion) from both brain hemispheres, from which total RNA was extracted.
2014-06-16 | E-GEOD-58510 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Social anxiety disorder is characterized by a persistent and abnormal fear and avoidance of social situations, but available treatment options are rather unspecific. Using an established mouse social fear conditioning (SFC) paradigm, we profiled gene expression and chromatin alterations after acquisition and extinction of social fear within the septum, a brain region important for social fear and social behaviors. We validated coding and non-coding RNAs and found specific isoforms of the long non-coding RNA Meg3 to be regulated depending on the success of social fear extinction. In vivo knockdown of specific Meg3 isoforms in conditioned mice resulted in impaired social fear extinction, as revealed by lower social investigation levels at the end of the extinction training, accompanied with increased baseline activity of the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. Using ATAC-Seq and CUT&RUN, we characterized alterations in chromatin level after social fear extinction and identified Auts2 and Dclk3 as potential targets of Meg3.
2021-11-02 | GSE178210 | GEO
Project description:Extinction learning refers to the phenomenon that a previously learned response to an environmental stimulus, for example the expression of an aversive behavior upon exposure to a specific context, is reduced when the stimulus is repeatedly presented in the absence of a previously paired aversive event. Extinction of fear memories has been implicated with the treatment of anxiety disease but the molecular processes that underlie fear extinctionare only beginning to emerge. Here we show that fear extinction initiates up-regulation of hippocampal insulin-growth factor 2 (Igf2) and down-regulation of insulin-growth factor binding protein 7 (Igfbp7). In line with this observation we demonstrate that IGF2 facilitates fear extinction, while IGFBP7 impairs fear extinction in an IGF2-dependent manner. Furthermore, we identify one cellular substrate of altered IGF2-signaling during fear extinction. To this end we show that fear extinction-induced IGF2/IGFBP7-signaling promotes the survival of 17-19 day-old newborn hippocampal neurons. In conclusion, our data suggests that therapeutic strategies that enhance IGF2-signaling and adult neurogenesis might be suitable to treat disease linked to excessive fear memory.
2011-08-08 | GSE31063 | GEO
Project description:Here we translationally profiled the transcriptome of Crh-expressing neurons (Crh neurons) within the CeA following fear conditioning (FC) and fear extinction (EXT) in mice using translating ribosome affinity purification (TRAP) followed by RNA sequencing. A tone alone group (TA) was used as a control group.
2020-09-05 | GSE157021 | GEO