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Nestler EJ, Russo SJ. Neurobiological basis of stress resilience. Neuron 2024; 112:1911-1929. [PMID: 38795707 PMCID: PMC11189737 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2024.05.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2024] [Revised: 03/21/2024] [Accepted: 05/01/2024] [Indexed: 05/28/2024]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric J Nestler
- Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Department of Psychiatry, The Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.
| | - Scott J Russo
- Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Department of Psychiatry, The Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.
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Zamorina TA, Ivashkina OI, Toropova KA, Anokhin KV. Inhibition of Protein Synthesis Attenuates Formation of Traumatic Memory and Normalizes Fear-Induced c-Fos Expression in a Mouse Model of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Int J Mol Sci 2024; 25:6544. [PMID: 38928250 PMCID: PMC11204086 DOI: 10.3390/ijms25126544] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2024] [Revised: 05/24/2024] [Accepted: 06/11/2024] [Indexed: 06/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating psychosomatic condition characterized by impairment of brain fear circuits and persistence of exceptionally strong associative memories resistant to extinction. In this study, we investigated the neural and behavioral consequences of inhibiting protein synthesis, a process known to suppress the formation of conventional aversive memories, in an established PTSD animal model based on contextual fear conditioning in mice. Control animals were subjected to the conventional fear conditioning task. Utilizing c-Fos neural activity mapping, we found that the retrieval of PTSD and normal aversive memories produced activation of an overlapping set of brain structures. However, several specific areas, such as the infralimbic cortex and the paraventricular thalamic nucleus, showed an increase in the PTSD group compared to the normal aversive memory group. Administration of protein synthesis inhibitor before PTSD induction disrupted the formation of traumatic memories, resulting in behavior that matched the behavior of mice with usual aversive memory. Concomitant with this behavioral shift was a normalization of brain c-Fos activation pattern matching the one observed in usual fear memory. Our findings demonstrate that inhibiting protein synthesis during traumatic experiences significantly impairs the development of PTSD in a mouse model. These data provide insights into the neural underpinnings of protein synthesis-dependent traumatic memory formation and open prospects for the development of new therapeutic strategies for PTSD prevention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tatyana A. Zamorina
- Institute for Advanced Brain Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia; (T.A.Z.); (O.I.I.); (K.A.T.)
- Faculty of Biology, Department of Higher Nervous Activity, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119234 Moscow, Russia
| | - Olga I. Ivashkina
- Institute for Advanced Brain Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia; (T.A.Z.); (O.I.I.); (K.A.T.)
- Laboratory of Neuronal Intelligence, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
| | - Ksenia A. Toropova
- Institute for Advanced Brain Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia; (T.A.Z.); (O.I.I.); (K.A.T.)
- Laboratory of Neuronal Intelligence, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
| | - Konstantin V. Anokhin
- Institute for Advanced Brain Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia; (T.A.Z.); (O.I.I.); (K.A.T.)
- Laboratory of Neuronal Intelligence, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
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Dirven BCJ, van Melis L, Daneva T, Dillen L, Homberg JR, Kozicz T, Henckens MJAG. Hippocampal Trauma Memory Processing Conveying Susceptibility to Traumatic Stress. Neuroscience 2024; 540:87-102. [PMID: 38220126 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2024.01.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2023] [Revised: 12/04/2023] [Accepted: 01/10/2024] [Indexed: 01/16/2024]
Abstract
While the majority of the population is ever exposed to a traumatic event during their lifetime, only a fraction develops posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Disrupted trauma memory processing has been proposed as a core factor underlying PTSD symptomatology. We used transgenic Targeted-Recombination-in-Active-Populations (TRAP) mice to investigate potential alterations in trauma-related hippocampal memory engrams associated with the development of PTSD-like symptomatology. Mice were exposed to a stress-enhanced fear learning paradigm, in which prior exposure to a stressor affects the learning of a subsequent fearful event (contextual fear conditioning using foot shocks), during which neuronal activity was labeled. One week later, mice were behaviorally phenotyped to identify mice resilient and susceptible to developing PTSD-like symptomatology. Three weeks post-learning, mice were re-exposed to the conditioning context to induce remote fear memory recall, and associated hippocampal neuronal activity was assessed. While no differences in the size of the hippocampal neuronal ensemble activated during fear learning were observed between groups, susceptible mice displayed a smaller ensemble activated upon remote fear memory recall in the ventral CA1, higher regional hippocampal parvalbuminneuronal density and a relatively lower activity of parvalbumininterneurons upon recall. Investigation of potential epigenetic regulators of the engram revealed rather generic (rather than engram-specific) differences between groups, with susceptible mice displaying lower hippocampal histone deacetylase 2 expression, and higher methylation and hydroxymethylation levels. These finding implicate variation in epigenetic regulation within the hippocampus, as well as reduced regional hippocampal activity during remote fear memory recall in interindividual differences in susceptibility to traumatic stress.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bart C J Dirven
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Department of Medical Imaging, Anatomy, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Lennart van Melis
- Department of Medical Imaging, Anatomy, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Teya Daneva
- Department of Medical Imaging, Anatomy, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Lieke Dillen
- Department of Medical Imaging, Anatomy, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Judith R Homberg
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Tamas Kozicz
- Department of Medical Imaging, Anatomy, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Center for Individualized Medicine, Department of Clinical Genomics, and Biochemical Genetics Laboratory, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA; University of Pecs Medical School, Department of Anatomy, Pecs, Hungary
| | - Marloes J A G Henckens
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Chelini G, Trombetta EM, Fortunato-Asquini T, Ollari O, Pecchia T, Bozzi Y. Automated Segmentation of the Mouse Body Language to Study Stimulus-Evoked Emotional Behaviors. eNeuro 2023; 10:ENEURO.0514-22.2023. [PMID: 37648448 PMCID: PMC10496135 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0514-22.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/27/2022] [Revised: 07/15/2023] [Accepted: 07/24/2023] [Indexed: 09/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Understanding the neural basis of emotions is a critical step to uncover the biological substrates of neuropsychiatric disorders. To study this aspect in freely behaving mice, neuroscientists have relied on the observation of ethologically relevant bodily cues to infer the affective content of the subject, both in neutral conditions or in response to a stimulus. The best example of that is the widespread assessment of freezing in experiments testing both conditioned and unconditioned fear responses. While robust and powerful, these approaches come at a cost: they are usually confined within selected time windows, accounting for only a limited portion of the complexity of emotional fluctuation. Moreover, they often rely on visual inspection and subjective judgment, resulting in inconsistency across experiments and questionable result interpretations. To overcome these limitations, novel tools are arising, fostering a new avenue in the study of the mouse naturalistic behavior. In this work we developed a computational tool [stimulus-evoked behavioral tracking in 3D for rodents (SEB3R)] to automate and standardize an ethologically driven observation of freely moving mice. Using a combination of machine learning-based behavioral tracking and unsupervised cluster analysis, we identified statistically meaningful postures that could be used for empirical inference on a subsecond scale. We validated the efficacy of this tool in a stimulus-driven test, the whisker nuisance (WN) task, where mice are challenged with a prolonged and invasive whisker stimulation, showing that identified postures can be reliably used as a proxy for stimulus-driven fearful and explorative behaviors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriele Chelini
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto 38068, Italy
| | | | - Tommaso Fortunato-Asquini
- Department of Cellular, Computational, and Integrative Biology (CIBIO), University of Trento, Trento 38123, Italy
| | - Ottavia Ollari
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto 38068, Italy
| | - Tommaso Pecchia
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto 38068, Italy
| | - Yuri Bozzi
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto 38068, Italy
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Council of Research) Neuroscience Institute, Pisa 56124, Italy
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