Cao Qingying, Wang Zihe, Bai Wenwen, Liu Tiaotiao, Zheng Xuyuan
School of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
Equipment Department, Tianjin Cancer Hospital Airport Hospital, Tianjin, China.
Front Neurosci. 2023 Mar 27;17:1145721. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1145721. eCollection 2023.
Depression is a mental disorder characterized by aberrant exploratory behavior. Environmental factors, such as chronic stress, are commonly used to induce depression-like behavior in rodent models. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the basolateral amygdala (BLA) are crucial sites in subjects with chronic stress-induced depression. The transmission of amplitude information from the mPFC to the BLA was abated during exploratory behavior in depressive rats; however, the nature of the phase interaction between these two sites remains unknown.
We used chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) to model depression in rats and acquired local field potentials (LFPs) via multiple electrodes implanted in the mPFC and the BLA while rats (both the control and CUMS groups, respectively) were allowed to explore freely in an open field. The weighted phase lag index (WPLI) within the mPFC and the BLA and phase transfer entropy (PTE) from the mPFC to BLA were computed for two groups of rats (control and CUMS rats) to quantify the phase information transmission.
Rats subjected to CUMS showed a decrease in exploratory behavior. The WPLI within the mPFC and the BLA showed strikingly higher phase synchrony at theta frequencies (4-12 Hz) than other frequency bands during exploratory behavior in both the control and CUMS groups. The results of theta PTE from the mPFC to BLA showed that PTE was significantly decreased in the CUMS group compared with the control group.
These findings demonstrated that attenuated phase information transfer might restrain exploratory behavior in CUMS rats.
抑郁症是一种以异常探索行为为特征的精神障碍。环境因素，如慢性应激，常用于在啮齿动物模型中诱导类似抑郁的行为。内侧前额叶皮质（mPFC）和基底外侧杏仁核（BLA）是慢性应激诱导抑郁症患者的关键部位。在抑郁大鼠的探索行为过程中，从mPFC到BLA的振幅信息传递减弱；然而，这两个部位之间相位相互作用的性质仍然未知。
我们使用慢性不可预测轻度应激（CUMS）对大鼠进行抑郁建模，并通过植入mPFC和BLA的多个电极获取局部场电位（LFP），同时让大鼠（分别为对照组和CUMS组）在旷场中自由探索。计算两组大鼠（对照组和CUMS组大鼠）mPFC和BLA内的加权相位滞后指数（WPLI）以及从mPFC到BLA的相位转移熵（PTE），以量化相位信息传递。
遭受CUMS的大鼠探索行为减少。在对照组和CUMS组大鼠的探索行为期间，mPFC和BLA内的WPLI在θ频率（4 - 12Hz）下显示出比其他频段更高的相位同步性。从mPFC到BLA的θ PTE结果表明，与对照组相比，CUMS组的PTE显著降低。
这些发现表明，相位信息传递减弱可能会抑制CUMS大鼠的探索行为。
