Synchronized activity between the ventral hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex during anxiety

By Avishek Adhikari, Mihir A. Topiwala, J. Gordon. Neuron, 2010

700 citations recorded by the source corpus.

SUMMARY The ventral hippocampus, unlike its dorsal counterpart, is required for anxiety-like behavior. The means by which it acts are unknown. We hypothesized that the hippocampus synchronizes with downstream targets that influence anxiety, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). To test this hypothesis, we recorded mPFC and hippocampal activity in mice exposed to two anxiogenic arenas. Theta-frequency activity in the mPFC and ventral, but not dorsal hippocampus was highly correlated at baseline, and this correlation increased in both anxiogenic environments. Increases in mPFC theta power predicted avoidance of the aversive compartments of each arena, and were larger in serotonin 1A-receptor knockout mice, a genetic model of increased anxiety-like behavior. These results suggest a role for theta-frequency synchronization between the ventral hippocampus and the mPFC in anxiety. They are consistent with the notion that such synchronization is a general mechanism by which the hippocampus communicates with downstream structures of behavioral relevance.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/369dccaec3b44d11864a5f816e24e754619fd145

Citations in the corpus

• Cortical-limbic circuit dynamics of approach-avoidance conflict in humans (2026, unknown): “Other studies report bidirectional mPFC-amygdala circuitry, implicating the mPFC in top-down control of amygdala-mediated anxiety behaviors in rodents 21,25 .”
• An intracranial dissection of human escape circuits (2024, unknown): “Previous rodent studies have demonstrated the role of this neural circuitry in anxiety-related responses 87,88 .”