Sex- and Estrus-Dependent Differences in Rat Basolateral Amygdala
| Autor: | J. Amiel Rosenkranz, Shannon R. Blume, M. Regina DeJoseph, Mallika Padival, Jaime E. Vantrease, Janice H. Urban, Matthew J. Record, Ronny Chan, Mari Freedberg |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
0301 basic medicine
Male medicine.medical_specialty endocrine system Conditioning Classical Action Potentials Amygdala Rats Sprague-Dawley 03 medical and health sciences Basal (phylogenetics) 0302 clinical medicine Estrus Internal medicine medicine Premovement neuronal activity Animals Research Articles Estrous cycle Sex Characteristics Basolateral Nuclear Complex General Neuroscience Extinction (psychology) Fear biochemical phenomena metabolism and nutrition Rats Electrophysiology 030104 developmental biology medicine.anatomical_structure Endocrinology Female Psychology 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Basolateral amygdala Hormone |
| Zdroj: | The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. 37(44) |
| ISSN: | 1529-2401 |
| Popis: | Depression and anxiety are diagnosed almost twice as often in women, and the symptomology differs in men and women and is sensitive to sex hormones. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) contributes to emotion-related behaviors that differ between males and females and across the reproductive cycle. This hints at sex- or estrus-dependent features of BLA function, about which very little is known. The purpose of this study was to test whether there are sex differences or estrous cyclicity in rat BLA physiology and to determine their mechanistic correlates. We found substantial sex differences in the activity of neurons in lateral nuclei (LAT) and basal nuclei (BA) of the BLA that were associated with greater excitatory synaptic input in females. We also found strong differences in the activity of LAT and BA neurons across the estrous cycle. These differences were associated with a shift in the inhibition–excitation balance such that LAT had relatively greater inhibition during proestrus which paralleled more rapid cued fear extinction. In contrast, BA had relatively greater inhibition during diestrus that paralleled more rapid contextual fear extinction. These results are the first to demonstrate sex differences in BLA neuronal activity and the impact of estrous cyclicity on these measures. The shift between LAT and BA predominance across the estrous cycle provides a simple construct for understanding the effects of the estrous cycle on BLA-dependent behaviors. These results provide a novel framework to understand the cyclicity of emotional memory and highlight the importance of considering ovarian cycle when studying the BLA of females.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThere are differences in emotional responses and many psychiatric symptoms between males and females. This may point to sex differences in limbic brain regions. Here we demonstrate sex differences in neuronal activity in one key limbic region, the basolateral amygdala (BLA), whose activity fluctuates across the estrous cycle due to a shift in the balance of inhibition and excitation across two BLA regions, the lateral and basal nuclei. By uncovering this push–pull shift between lateral and basal nuclei, these results help to explain disparate findings about the effects of biological sex and estrous cyclicity on emotion and provide a framework for understanding fluctuations in emotional memory and psychiatric symptoms. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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