Stress

…The session examines stress-related disruption of neuroimmune communication, including inflammation and increased monocyte abundance. It connects these mechanisms with translational efforts to develop targeted interventions for major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Although stress can be considered as an ongoing process that helps an organism to cope with present and future challenges, when it is too intense or uncontrollable, it can lead to adverse consequences for physical and mental health. Social stress specifically, is a highly prevalent traumatic experience, present in multiple contexts, such as war, bullying and interpersonal violence, and it has been linked with increased risk for major depression and anxiety disorders. Nevertheless, not all individuals exposed to strong stressful events develop psychopathology, with the mechanisms of resilience

…The influence of stress on cognition and reward-related behaviors varies depending on factors such as the duration and type of stressor, as well as intricate interactions between genetic factors and the environment. Stress may either enhance optimal decision-making and reward-related approaches or contribute to cognitive impairments and ineffective coping mechanisms, falling along a spectrum from resilience to vulnerability. The impact of

Stress and sleep disruption promote inflammation and metabolic adaptations, with important disease-modifying implications for psychiatric disorders. Using a novel chronic unpredictable sleep disruption (CUSD) paradigm, we characterised the impact of disrupted sleep and/or stress hormone exposure on locomotor behaviour and central markers of inflammation in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a region implicated in regulation of mood, motivation and locomotor activity. Forty-eight Wistar rats (24 male; 24 female) were separated into groups exposed to combinations of CUSD/non-CUSD and corticosterone (2

…to play pivotal role in modulating stress and arousal states. In the accompanying poster (Kota et al.), we defined several brain regions containing glutamatergic, GABAergic or mixed populations of neurons that project to PVT. In this study, we mapped cortical and subcortical afferents in the PVT and examined their distribution relative to the PVT/CR+ neuron population. We used vGLUT2-Cre, vGAT-Cre, and vGLUT2-Cre/vGAT-Flp double transgenic mouse strains to explore subcortical inputs via ant

Sex is an important factor in the progression and treatment of alcohol addiction, and therapeutic approaches may have to be tailored to potential sex differences. This highlights the importance of understanding sex differences in behaviors that reflect key elements of clinical alcohol addiction, such as compulsive use.Large populations of genetically heterogeneous male and female Wistar rats were tested in an established model of compulsive alcohol self-administration, operationalized as alcohol responding despite contingent foot shock punishment. We also tested baseline alcohol self-administr

…including depression, anxiety, and stress, and insomnia among older adults with MCI. 145 Greek older adults were recruited from an outpatient memory clinic in Athens. The sample m

Pioneering research on brain-body interactions has revealed the existence of functional coupling between the rhythmic activity of the stomach and brain. While major breakthroughs support a pivotal role of the gut in psychopathology, the mental health implications of this recently discovered stomach-brain axis are unknown. We hypothesised that stomach-brain coupling in transdiagnostic cortical networks would index individual differences in mental health, in particular with anxiogenic factors. We estimated stomach-brain coupling by combining functional brain imaging with electrogastrography in t

Stress is a physiological adaptive response towards physical and psychological stressors that can have profound impact on appetite. In addition to suppressing food intake, stress has also been shown to reduce reward seeking and cue-induced appetitive behaviours. Previous studies show that stress activates hindbrain nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) neurons and NTS neurons have been implicated in stress-induced suppression of food intake. However, whether NTS neurons mediate the effects of stress on cue-induced appetitive behaviours are unclear. Using behavioural, pharmacogenetic and neural m

…memory, and its susceptibility to stress. The ongoing hypothesis is that stress, by impeding neurogenesis, contributes to symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our work explores the potential of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive constituent of cannabis, in mitigating stress-induced gene expression alterations in astrocytes, thereby fostering neurogenesis. The initial phase involves inducing cellular stress in an astrocyte-

In humans, loss aversion is sensitive to stress, and patients with neurological or psychiatric illnesses are particularly vulnerable to the detrimental effects of stress that lead to suboptimal life-altering choices. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) are stress sensitive brain areas that alter extracellular levels of norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA), respectively. However, the dynamics of neurotransmitter release in these brain regions during stress has not been systematically explored. We used pharmacology and fiber photometric analysis to elucidate the impact of

It is well-established that stress impairs immunity, however, the precise underlying mechanisms remain elusive. We discovered that stress modulates the expression levels of acute-phase proteins (APPs), which broadly regulate physiological processes including innate immunity and homeostasis maintenance. APPs are traditionally associated with the inflammatory response and are commonly used as indicators for inflammation (e.g., CRP). We found that stress on its own can also affect APPs levels and that stress preceding an inflammatory challenge disrupts the typical APPs response. Importantly, we f

Stress induces catecholaminergic system adaptations implicated in the etiology of stress-related disorders. Adrenergic receptors (ARs) in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) regulate phasic dopamine (DA) release in the mesolimbic system, associated with stress-related behavioral responses. Recently we demonstrated that intra-VTA ALPHA2-ARs (but not ALPHA1-ARs) modulation of such DA release is altered by acute stress (electric footshock). However, effects of different kind of stressors (e.g. psychosocial vs physical) on intra-VTA ALPHA2-AR signaling remains to be demonstrated.We studied the impact

…which respond to inflammatory and stress mediators. Activation of astrocytic GPCRs triggers elevation in intracellular calcium levels and the production and release of astrocytic factors. These astrocytic factors play crucial roles in modulating synapse numbers and synaptic plasticity.Changes in synapse numbers have been documented in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Many epidemiological studies indicate that chronic inflammation and stress during critical neuro

Stress is an adaptive mechanism that enables an optimal response to danger. However, chronic stress disrupts normal bodily functions and can lead to various disorders. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is involved in the regulation of stress responses. One of the output targets of the mPFC is the lateral hypothalamus (LH), a brain region that regulates innate behaviours known to be affected by stress. In this work, we analysed effects of optogenetic stimulation of mPFC inputs to LH on innate behaviours in freely behaving mice exposed to different stressors.Optogenetic stimulation of mPFC pro

…Stress is a powerful trigger of regulation methods and past research reveals substantive correlations between stress and rumination, which is a response type involving repetitive thoughts about the stress-inducing stimulus and its causes or consequences. Importantly, both are implied in the pathogenesis of several somatic and psychiatric health conditions.The causal direction between stress and rumination remains unclear, pa

Stress-induced alterations in cognitive functions are documented to be mediated by corticosteroid hormones and hence mineralocorticoid (MR) and/or glucocorticoid receptor (GR) activation. Moreover, recent evidence underscores the pivotal role of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) as a modulator of stress responses including the impact of corticosteroids on diverse memory processes. However, the precise mechanisms governing corticosteroid-induced impairment of novel object recognition (NOR) retrieval are yet unknown. The present study aims at elucidating the intricate interactions between cortico

…by the emergence of disease following stress, psychosomatic disorders, or recovery in response to placebo treatment. Nevertheless, this fundamental aspect of physiology remains largely unexplored. In this talk, I will focus on the brain’s involvement in regulating the peripheral immune response and explore the question of how the brain evaluates and represents the state of the immune system it regulates.

…alcohol, and physical or emotional stress. Interestingly, caffeine and stress are common triggers among other episodic channelopathies, as well as causing tremor or shaking in otherwise healthy adults. The mechanism underlying stress and caffeine induced motor impairment remains poorly understood. Utilizing behavi

Abuse, neglect, and other forms of uncontrollable stress during childhood and early adolescence can lead to adverse outcomes later in life, including especially perturbations in the regulation of mood and emotional states, and specifically anxiety disorders and depression. However, stress experiences vary from one individual to the next, meaning that causal relationships and mechanistic accounts are often difficult to establish in humans. This interdisciplinary talk considers the value of research in experimental animals where stressor experiences can be tightly controlled and detailed investi

…that a chronic mild unpredictable stress procedure during adolescence in male Wistar rats arrests the normal behavioral mat

Survival is predicated on the ability of an organism to respond to stress. The reliability of this response is ensured by a synaptic architecture that is relatively inflexible (i.e. hard-wired). Our work has shown that in naive animals, synapses on CRH neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus are very reluctant to modification. If animals are stressed, however, these synapses become willing to learn. This seminar will focus on mechanisms linking acute stress to metaplastic changes at glutamate synapses, and also show how stress, and these synaptic changes can be transmitted

…the impact and mechanism whereby stress and anxiety affect brain and behavior in an integrative program involvong studies in rodents and humans. She is the founder and co-president of Swiss Stress Network, co-director of Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research Synapsy. She is Chair of the ALBA Network, and pas-President of Cajal Advanced Neuroscience Training Program and the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies.