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Liu H, He Y, Liu H, Brouwers B, Yin N, Lawler K, Keogh JM, Henning E, Lee DK, Yu M, Tu L, Zhang N, Conde KM, Han J, Yan Z, Scarcelli NA, Liao L, Xu J, Tong Q, Zheng H, Sun Z, Yang Y, Wang C, He Y, Farooqi IS, Xu Y. Neural circuits expressing the serotonin 2C receptor regulate memory in mice and humans. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2024; 10:eadl2675. [PMID: 38941473 PMCID: PMC11212768 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl2675] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2023] [Accepted: 05/22/2024] [Indexed: 06/30/2024]
Abstract
Declined memory is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Experiments in rodents and human postmortem studies suggest that serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) plays a role in memory, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. Here, we investigate the role of 5-HT 2C receptor (5-HT2CR) in regulating memory. Transgenic mice expressing a humanized HTR2C mutation exhibit impaired plasticity of hippocampal ventral CA1 (vCA1) neurons and reduced memory. Further, 5-HT neurons project to and synapse onto vCA1 neurons. Disruption of 5-HT synthesis in vCA1-projecting neurons or deletion of 5-HT2CRs in the vCA1 impairs neural plasticity and memory. We show that a selective 5-HT2CR agonist, lorcaserin, improves synaptic plasticity and memory in an AD mouse model. Cumulatively, we demonstrate that hippocampal 5-HT2CR signaling regulates memory, which may inform the use of 5-HT2CR agonists in the treatment of dementia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hesong Liu
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Yang He
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Hailan Liu
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Bas Brouwers
- University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK
| | - Na Yin
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Katherine Lawler
- University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK
| | - Julia M. Keogh
- University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK
| | - Elana Henning
- University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK
| | - Dong-Kee Lee
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Meng Yu
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Longlong Tu
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Nan Zhang
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Kristine M. Conde
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Junying Han
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Zili Yan
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Nikolas A. Scarcelli
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Lan Liao
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Jianming Xu
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Qingchun Tong
- Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Hui Zheng
- Huffington Center on Aging, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Zheng Sun
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Yongjie Yang
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Chunmei Wang
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Yanlin He
- Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Brain Glycemic and Metabolism Control Department, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70808, USA
| | - I. Sadaf Farooqi
- University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK
| | - Yong Xu
- USDA/ARS, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
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Bouchekioua Y, Nishitani N, Ohmura Y. Conditioned Lick Suppression: Assessing Contextual, Cued, and Context-cue Compound Fear Responses Independently of Locomotor Activity in Mice. Bio Protoc 2022; 12:e4568. [PMID: 36561114 PMCID: PMC9729859 DOI: 10.21769/bioprotoc.4568] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2022] [Revised: 09/06/2022] [Accepted: 10/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Pavlovian fear conditioning is a widely used procedure to assess learning and memory processes that has also been extensively used as a model of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Freezing, the absence of movement except for respiratory-related movements, is commonly used as a measure of fear response in non-human animals. However, this measure of fear responses can be affected by a different baseline of locomotor activity between groups and/or conditions. Moreover, fear conditioning procedures are usually restricted to a single conditioned stimulus (e.g., a tone cue, the context, etc.) and thus do not depict the complexity of real-life situations where traumatic memories are composed of a complex set of stimuli associated with the same aversive event. To overcome this issue, we use a conditioned lick suppression paradigm where water-deprived mice are presented with a single conditioned stimulus (CS, a tone cue or the context) previously paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US, a foot shock) while consuming water. We use the ratio of number of licks before and during the CS presentation as a fear measure, thereby neutralizing the potential effect of locomotor activity in fear responses. We further implemented the conditioned lick suppression ratio to assess the effect of cue competition using a compound of contextual and tone cue conditioned stimuli that were extinguished separately. This paradigm should prove useful in assessing potential therapeutics and/or behavioral therapies in PTSD, while neutralizing potential confounding effects between locomotor activity and fear responses on one side, and by considering potential cue-competition effects on the other side. This protocol was validated in: Transl Psychiatry (2022), DOI: 10.1038/s41398-022-01815-2 Graphical abstract Schematic representation of the compound context-cue condition lick suppression procedure. Illustration reproduced from Bouchekioua et al. (2022).
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Affiliation(s)
- Youcef Bouchekioua
- Department of Neuropharmacology, Hokkaido University Faculty and Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
,
*For correspondence:
;
| | - Naoya Nishitani
- Department of Neuropharmacology, Hokkaido University Faculty and Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
,
Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, Institute of Medical, Pharmaceutical and Health Sciences, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan
| | - Yu Ohmura
- Department of Neuropharmacology, Hokkaido University Faculty and Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
,
*For correspondence:
;
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