The medial orbitofrontal cortex governs reward-related circuits in an age-dependent manner
| Autor: | Maxine K Loh, J Amiel Rosenkranz |
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| Rok vydání: | 2022 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Cereb Cortex |
| ISSN: | 1460-2199 1047-3211 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/cercor/bhac182 |
| Popis: | Nucleus accumbens (NAc) neurons integrate excitatory inputs from cortical and limbic structures, contributing to critical cognitive functions, including decision-making. As these afferents mature from adolescence through adulthood, incoming signals to the NAc may summate differently between age groups. Decision-making evaluates both reward and risk before action selection, suggesting an interplay between reward- and risk-related circuits. Medial orbitofrontal cortex (MO)-NAc circuits permit risk assessment behaviors and likely underlie risk information incorporation. As adolescents make reward-centric choices regardless of risk, we hypothesized the impact of MO activity alters reward-related NAc circuits in an age-dependent manner. To test this hypothesis, we used single-unit electrophysiology to measure MO train stimulation’s effect on reward-related pathways, specifically the basolateral amygdala (BLA)-NAc circuit, in adult and adolescent rats. MO train stimulation altered the strength but not the timing of BLA–NAc interactions in a frequency-dependent manner. In adults, MO train stimulation produced a frequency-dependent, bidirectional effect on BLA-evoked NAc AP probability. Contrastingly, MO train stimulation uniformly attenuated BLA-NAc interactions in adolescents. While the mature MO can govern reward-related circuits in an activity-dependent manner, perhaps to adapt to positive or negative decision-making outcomes, the adolescent MO may be less able to bidirectionally impact reward-related pathways resulting in biased decision-making. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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