Topic: stress-related disorders

Early life adversity (ELA), defined as an adverse experience during critical periods in brain development, is a risk factor for neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. The major effector molecules of stress are glucocorticoids (GCs), which by binding to glucocorticoid receptors (GRs) regulate several biological processes in the brain and the body. So far, little is known about the effects of ELA on a subtype of glial cells, named oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) or NG2-glia. To investigate how GCs can affect the molecular signature of the NG2-glia and impact the behavioral phenotyp

Social buffering, the phenomenon by which the presence of others can reduce the consequences of stressful experiences, has been observed in both humans and rodents, yet the precise mechanism by which social interactions can offset the negative impact of stress remains unknown. Here, utilizing a new behavioral paradigm, we demonstrate that brief social interaction with a familiar, unstressed individual after acute restraint, is sufficient to ameliorate the stress-induced deficits in reward seeking in both male and female mice. Previous studies indicate that within the ventral tegmental area (VT