Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Mental health is crucially linked to social behavior. A crucial aspect of healthy
social behavior involves learning to adapt emotional responses to social cues, for
example learning to suppress anxiety through social familiarity, or social familiarity induced
anxiolysis (SoFiA). SoFiA is well documented; however, the neural mechanisms
of SoFiA are unclear. SoFiA is modeled in rats by employing a social interaction
habituation (SI-hab) protocol. Using SI-hab protocol it has been determined that SoFiA
represents social safety learning, which requires both anxiogenic stimulus (Anx) and
social familiarity (SF) during training sessions (5-6 daily SI sessions), and SoFiA
expression is dependent on infralimbic cortex (IL). Based on these findings we
hypothesize that Anx and SF are processed by unique neural systems, and repeated
convergence of these signals interact within IL to induce plasticity, resulting in social
safety learning and anxiolysis. Following SoFiA expression, rats were either sacrificed 30
minutes {for gene expression or Neural Activity Regulated Gene (NARG) analysis} or
perfused 90 minutes (for cFos immunoreactivity analysis) after SI session on social
training day 5. This led to gaining insights into regions of brain involved in SoFiA
response as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms. We identified amygdala,
specifically the central amygdala (CeA), basomedial amygdala (BMA) and basolateral
amygdala (BLA) as potential candidate regions in SoFiA response. Next, we investigated
the role of IL and its efferent pathways in SoFiA expression using inhibitory DREADDs
and intersectional chemogenetics to inhibit IL projection neurons and/or axons. We identified that specific projection neurons within the IL are pivotal for SoFiA expression,
and that within these projections, the ones that specifically projected to the amygdala are
most crucial for expression of SoFiA. / 2021-07-01
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IUPUI/oai:scholarworks.iupui.edu:1805/23194 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Majumdar, Sreeparna |
| Contributors | Cummins, Theodore R., Truitt, William A., Block, Michelle L., Johnson, Phillip L., Engleman, Eric A. |
| Source Sets | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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