School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore, 637551, Singapore.
Sci Rep. 2018 May 9;8(1):7308. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-25399-4.
Prelimbic cortex and infralimbic cortex, parts of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, are critical brain regions for generating a flexible behavioral response to changing environmental contingencies. This includes the role of these brain structures in the extinction of learned fear, decision making and retrieval of remote memories. Dendritic structure of medial prefrontal cortex neurons retains significant structural plasticity in adulthood. This has been mainly demonstrated as dendritic atrophy and loss of dendritic spines due to chronic stress. It remains unknown if housing condition of the animals itself can cause opposing changes in the dendritic organization. In that backdrop, here we report that short-term increase in complexity of the housing causes a robust increase in complexity of dendritic architecture of prelimbic and infralimbic neurons. This is reflected in the dendritic expansion of prelimbic neurons and increase in spine density of prelimbic and infralimbic neurons. These results suggest that non-invasive changes in the housing environment can be harnessed to study brain reserves for the flexible and species-typical behaviors.
前额皮层的扣带回皮质和下边缘皮质是腹内侧前额叶皮层的重要组成部分，对于对不断变化的环境条件产生灵活的行为反应至关重要。这包括这些大脑结构在消除习得性恐惧、决策和检索远程记忆中的作用。内侧前额叶皮层神经元的树突结构在成年期保持着显著的结构可塑性。这主要表现为由于慢性应激导致的树突萎缩和树突棘丢失。目前尚不清楚动物自身的居住条件是否会导致树突组织发生相反的变化。在此背景下，我们报告称，短期增加居住环境的复杂性会导致前额皮层和下边缘皮质神经元的树突结构复杂性显著增加。这反映在边缘前神经元的树突扩张以及边缘前和下边缘皮质神经元的棘突密度增加。这些结果表明，非侵入性的居住环境变化可以被利用来研究大脑对灵活和物种典型行为的储备。
