KU Leuven, Experimental Neurosurgery and Neuroanatomy, UZ Herestraat 49 PB 7003, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
KU Leuven, Animal Physiology and Neurobiology, Naamsestraat PB 2467, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Leuven Brain Institute, Herestraat 49 PB 1021, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2020 Jul 13;101:109920. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.109920. Epub 2020 Mar 10.
A growing body of research supports a prominent role for the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) in the expression of adaptive and perhaps even pathological anxiety. The traditional premise that the BST is required for long-duration responses to threats, but not for fear responses to distinct, short-lived cues may, however, be oversimplified. A thorough evaluation of the involvement of the BST in cued and contextual fear is therefore warranted. In a series of preregistered experiments using male Wistar rats, we first addressed the involvement of the BST in cued fear. Following up on earlier work where we found that BST lesions disrupted auditory fear while the animals were in a rather high stress state, we here show that the BST is not required for the expression of more specific fear for the tone under less stressful conditions. In the second part, we corroborate that the same lesion method does attenuate contextual fear. Furthermore, despite prior indications for an asymmetric recruitment of the BST during the expression of anxiety, we found that bilateral lesioning of the BST is required for a significant attenuation of the expression of contextual fear. A functional BST in only one hemisphere resulted in increased variability in the behavioral outcome. We conclude that, in animals that acquired a fear memory with an intact brain, the bilateral BST mediates the expression of contextual fear, but not of unambiguous cued fear.
越来越多的研究支持终纹床核（BST）在适应性甚至病理性焦虑表达中的突出作用。然而，传统的前提是 BST 是对威胁的长时间反应所必需的，但不是对明确的、短暂的线索的恐惧反应所必需的，这一前提可能过于简单化。因此，有必要对 BST 在线索和情境恐惧中的参与进行全面评估。在一系列使用雄性 Wistar 大鼠的预先注册实验中，我们首先研究了 BST 在线索恐惧中的参与。在我们之前的工作中发现 BST 损伤会破坏听觉恐惧，而动物处于较高的应激状态之后，我们在这里表明，在应激条件较低的情况下，BST 对于更具体的音调恐惧的表达是不需要的。在第二部分中，我们证实相同的损伤方法会减弱情境恐惧。此外，尽管先前有迹象表明在焦虑表达过程中 BST 的不对称募集，但我们发现双侧 BST 损伤对于显著减弱情境恐惧的表达是必需的。仅一侧大脑的功能性 BST 导致行为结果的可变性增加。我们的结论是，在大脑完整的动物中，双侧 BST 介导了情境恐惧的表达，但不能介导明确的线索恐惧的表达。
