Ventral tegmental area glutamate neurons mediate nonassociative consequences of stress -- now published in Molecular Psychiatry

Congrats to Dillon McGovern, Mike Baratta, and team on the publication of our first collaboration on stress research! A lot more research has occurred since the original submission shown in our preprint at biorxiv.

Some highlights:
Behaviorally: Male and female mice show the effects uncontrollable stress differently. Males show reduced sociability and enhanced fear while females do not after stress. Females show reduced general exploratory behavior under mild threat (bright light) after stress. Male stress effects are dependent on the controllability of stress. Female mice show some effects dependent or independent on controllability.

Neurally: VTA glutamate neurons are required for the consequences of uncontrollable stress in both male and female mice. VTA glutamate neurons are activated by controllable and uncontrollable stress suggesting they do not discriminate the loss of control over stress (we’re working on where these neurons are though!). Genetically-distinct subtypes of VTA glutamate neurons are all activated by stress, but those that co-transmit glutamate and GABA are most activated. Lateral habenula neurons that receive synapses from VTA glutamate neurons are activated by stress (which we previously found were mostly from glutamate and GABA co-transmitting neurons), suggesting a cell-type specific pathway involved in the consequences of stress.

Check out the publication online ahead of print here

Root lab at SfN

Come check out the latest research from our group:
Emily Prevost on Sunday afternoon Nov 13 at 225.21 is presenting Brainwide tracing of monosynaptic inputs to ventral tegmental area glutamate-GABA co-transmitting neurons

Dillon McGovern on Monday afternoon Nov 14 at 398.08 is presenting Ventral tegmental area glutamate cell types differentially signal reward value

Annie Ly on Wednesday morning Nov 16 at 646.07 is presenting Bnst circuitry in stress-induced changes on exploratory behavior

Former lab PRA Connor McNulty is presenting Tuesday morning at 479.09 Behavioral control over stress recruits a distinct circuit in females

Collaborations with the Bob Spencer lab are by Will Stritzel: Nighttime red light sensitivity in laboratory rodents: suprachiasmatic nucleus activation, melatonin suppression, and phase shifted wheel running
and by Helen Strnad: Sleep- and circadian-related calcium activity and diurnal clock gene expression in serotonergic neurons of the adult rat dorsal raphe nucleus

A Semi-Automated Workflow for Brain Slice Histology Alignment, Registration, and Cell Quantification (SHARCQ)

Congratulation to Kris, Annie, Emily and co-authors on their publication of SHARCQ, a Semi-Automated Workflow for Brain Slice Histology Alignment, Registration, and Cell Quantification in eNeuro!

With SHARCQ, cellular quantification of counted neurons can be accomplished throughout the mouse brain when registering your histology to either the Allen Atlas or Chon Atlas. See more info here.