“Adaptation of neural pathways regulating monoamine metabolism in stress-coping behaviors”

When the animals face the environmental challenge as stress, they are supposed to cope with stress by decision making in behavior. In such conditions with stress, we observe the mouse exhibits alternation of two coping behaviors, i.e., struggling and immobility. Despite the significance of these adaptive choices of behaviors in survival, neural mechanism underlying it remains unclear.

We previously found that mice with suppressed activity in the dopaminergic and serotonergic neurons in the brain stem more frequently showed the passive coping under tail suspension and the social avoidance behaviors than control group. These results led us to the hypothesis that monoamines and its regulation play pivotal roles in behavioral choice to cope with stress.

To address this, we will examine role of the neural pathways regulating monoamine metabolisms in stress-coping behaviors by genetic manipulation of activity in these pathways. We also study temporal changes of neural circuit activities of these pathways along stress-coping to see how the brain adapts to the environmental challenge using electrophysiology and electrochemistry.

 
Recent Publications
1. Cui W, Mizukami H, Yanagisawa M, Aida T, Nomura M, Isomura Y, Takayanagi R, Ozawa K, Tanaka K, Aizawa H. Glial dysfunction in the mouse habenula causes depressive-like behaviors and sleep disturbance. J Neurosci 34:16273–16285. 2014
2. Aizawa, H., Yanagihara, S., Kobayashi, M., Niisato, K., Takekawa, T., Harukuni, R., McHugh, TJ., Fukai, F., Isomura, Y., Okamoto, H. The synchronous activity of lateral habenular neurons is essential for regulating hippocampal theta oscillation. J Neurosci 33:8909-8921. 2013
3. Aizawa H, Kobayashi M, Tanaka S, Fukai T, Okamoto H. Molecular characterization of the subnuclei in rat habenula. J Comp Neurol. 520:4051-4066. 2012

Posted:2016/02/17