PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Anxiety is among the most fundamental mammalian behaviors. Despite the physiological and pathological importance, its underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we recorded the activity of olfactory bulb (OB) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of rats, which are critical structures to brain\'s emotional processing network, while exploring different anxiogenic environments. Our results show that presence in anxiogenic contexts increases the OB and mPFC regional theta activities. Also, these local activity changes are associated with enhanced OB-mPFC theta power- and phase-based functional connectivity as well as OB-to-mPFC information transfer. Interestingly, these effects are more prominent in the unsafe zones of the anxiogenic environments, compared to safer zones. This consistent trend of changes in diverse behavioral environments as well as local and long-range neural activity features suggest that the dynamics of OB-mPFC circuit theta oscillations might underlie different types of anxiety behaviors, with possible implications for anxiety disorders.
摘要：
焦虑是哺乳动物最基本的行为之一。尽管生理和病理的重要性，其潜在的神经机制仍然知之甚少。这里,我们记录了大鼠嗅球（OB）和内侧前额叶皮质（mPFC）的活动，它们是大脑情感处理网络的关键结构，同时探索不同的焦虑环境。我们的结果表明，在焦虑环境中的存在会增加OB和mPFC区域theta活性。此外，这些本地活动变化与增强的OB-mPFCtheta基于功率和相位的功能连接以及OB到mPFC信息传输有关。有趣的是,这些影响在焦虑环境的不安全区域更为突出，与安全区相比。不同行为环境以及局部和远程神经活动特征的变化的这种一致趋势表明，OB-mPFC电路theta振荡的动力学可能是不同类型的焦虑行为的基础。可能对焦虑症有影响。
