Department of Neuroscience, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2010 Nov;20(11):2560-7. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhq003. Epub 2010 Feb 5.
We have recently reported in male rats that medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) neurons that project to the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) are resilient to stress-induced dendritic remodeling. The present study investigated whether this also occurs in female rats. This pathway was identified using the retrograde tracer Fast Blue injected into the BLA of ovariectomized female rats with estrogen replacement (OVX + E) and without (OVX + veh). Animals were exposed for 10 days either to 2-h immobilization stress or to home cage rest, after which layer III mPFC neurons that were either retrogradely labeled by Fast Blue or unlabeled were filled with Lucifer Yellow and analyzed for apical dendritic length and spine density. No dendritic remodeling occurred in unlabeled neurons from OVX + veh or OVX + E animals. In BLA-projecting neurons, however, stress had no effect on length in OVX + veh animals, but stressed OVX + E females showed greater dendritic length than controls at intermediate branches. Stress also caused an increase in spine density in all neurons in OVX + veh animals and a spine density increase in BLA-projecting neurons in OVX + E females. Estrogen also increased spine density on BLA-projecting neurons in unstressed animals. These data demonstrate both independent effects of estrogen on pyramidal cell morphology and effects that are interactive with stress, with the BLA-projecting neurons being sensitive to both kinds of effects.
我们最近在雄性大鼠中报道，投射到杏仁基底外侧核（BLA）的前额皮质（mPFC）神经元对应激诱导的树突重塑具有弹性。本研究探讨了这种情况是否也发生在雌性大鼠中。该通路是使用逆行示踪剂 Fast Blue 鉴定的，Fast Blue 注射到接受雌激素替代治疗（OVX + E）和未接受雌激素替代治疗（OVX + veh）的去卵巢雌性大鼠的 BLA 中。动物接受 10 天的 2 小时固定应激或在笼中休息，之后，用 Lucifer Yellow 填充逆行标记有 Fast Blue 或未标记的 III 层 mPFC 神经元，并分析其树突棘长度和密度。OVX + veh 或 OVX + E 动物的未标记神经元未发生树突重塑。然而，在投射到 BLA 的神经元中，应激对 OVX + veh 动物的长度没有影响，但应激的 OVX + E 雌性动物的中间分支的树突长度大于对照动物。应激还导致 OVX + veh 动物的所有神经元的棘密度增加，以及 OVX + E 雌性动物的投射到 BLA 的神经元的棘密度增加。雌激素还增加了未应激动物中投射到 BLA 的神经元的棘密度。这些数据表明，雌激素对锥体细胞形态具有独立的影响，并且与应激具有相互作用的影响，投射到 BLA 的神经元对这两种影响都很敏感。
