College of Life Sciences and Key Laboratory of Bioactive Materials Ministry of Education, Nankai University, 300071 Tianjin, PR China.
Ningbo Medical Center Lihuili Hospital, 315040 Ningbo, Zhejiang, PR China.
Behav Brain Res. 2022 Sep 26;434:114030. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2022.114030. Epub 2022 Jul 28.
Corticosterone is a stress hormone, which is often associated with a variety of the central nervous system diseases. The study was to investigate the effects of Chronic corticosterone exposure (CCE) on the alteration of neural oscillatory patterns which supported a wide range of basic and higher cognitive activities, and a potential mechanism. Accordingly, a chronic corticosterone exposure model was established in C57BL mice. Behavioral experiments showed that emotion regulation and short-term working memory were significantly impaired in CCE mice. Neural oscillation analysis showed that the increase of corticosterone reduced the theta-band energy but increased the gamma-band energy in the hippocampus dentate gyrus (DG) region. Moreover, the theta rhythm synchronization between perforant path (PP) and DG, and the strength of theta-gamma cross-frequency coupling were significantly attenuated in CCE mice. Meanwhile, CCE treatment could inhibit the expression of PSD95, SYP and NMDAR2A/B and increased the expression of GAD67 and GABAR. These results suggest that CCE may lead to emotion regulation and short-term working memory dysfunction through disturbing neural activity patterns, which was closely associated with disrupting the excitatory-inhibitory balance.
皮质酮是一种应激激素，常与多种中枢神经系统疾病有关。本研究旨在探讨慢性皮质酮暴露（CCE）对支持广泛基础和高级认知活动的神经振荡模式改变的影响及其潜在机制。因此，在 C57BL 小鼠中建立了慢性皮质酮暴露模型。行为实验表明，CCE 小鼠的情绪调节和短期工作记忆能力明显受损。神经振荡分析显示，皮质酮的增加降低了海马齿状回（DG）区的θ波段能量，但增加了γ波段能量。此外，CCE 小鼠的 PP 和 DG 之间的θ节律同步以及θ-γ 交叉频耦合强度明显减弱。同时，CCE 处理可抑制 PSD95、SYP 和 NMDAR2A/B 的表达，增加 GAD67 和 GABAR 的表达。这些结果表明，CCE 可能通过干扰神经活动模式导致情绪调节和短期工作记忆功能障碍，这与兴奋性抑制平衡的破坏密切相关。
