Emotional Behaviour
emotional behaviour
From pecking order to ketamine - neural mechanism of social and emotional behavior
Emotions and social interactions color our lives and shape our behaviors. Using animal models and engineered manipulations, we aim to understand how social and emotional behaviors are encoded in the brain, focusing on the neural circuits underlying dominance hierarchy and depression. This lecture will highlight our recent discoveries on how downward social mobility leads to depression; how ketamine tames depression by blocking burst firing in the brain’s antireward center; and, how glia-neuron interaction plays a surprising role in this process. I will also present our recent work on the mechanism underlying the sustained antidepressant activity of ketamine and its brain region specificity. With these results, we hope to illuminate on a more unified theory on ketamine’s mode of action and inspire new treatment strategies for depression.
From pecking order to ketamine - neural mechanism of social and emotional behavior
Emotions and social interactions color our lives and shape our behaviors. Using animal models and engineered manipulations, we aim to understand how social and emotional behaviors are encoded in the brain, focusing on the neural circuits underlying dominance hierarchy and depression. This lecture will highlight our recent discoveries on how downward social mobility leads to depression; how ketamine tames depression by blocking burst firing in the brain’s antireward center; and, how glia-neuron interaction plays a surprising role in this process. I will also present our recent work on the mechanism underlying the sustained antidepressant activity of ketamine and its brain region specificity. With these results, we hope to illuminate on a more unified theory on ketamine’s mode of action and inspire new treatment strategies for depression.
Astrocytes and oxytocin interaction regulates amygdala neuronal network activity and related behaviors”
Oxytocin orchestrates social and emotional behaviors through modulation of neural circuits in brain structures such as the central amygdala (CeA). In this structure, the release of oxytocin modulates inhibitory circuits and subsequently suppresses fear responses and decreases anxiety levels. Using astrocyte-specific gain and loss of function approaches and pharmacology, we demonstrate that oxytocin signaling in the central amygdala relies on a subpopulation of astrocytes that represent a prerequisite for proper function of CeA circuits and adequate behavioral responses, both in rats and mice. Our work identifies astrocytes as crucial cellular intermediaries of oxytocinergic modulation in emotional behaviors related to anxiety or positive reinforcement. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a direct role of astrocytes in oxytocin signaling and challenges the long-held dogma that oxytocin signaling occurs exclusively via direct action on neurons in the central nervous system.