Comfort for the troubled mind: Unravelling the neural basis for stress-feeding. . Utrecht, Paises Bajos

LINDERS LE; ADAN RAH; SOIZA REILLY M; PATRIKIOU L; MEYE FJ

Utrecht

Congreso; Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior; 2019

SSIB

Stressful events can form a potent trigger to overconsume palatable high-caloric food. This represents a core problem in obesity and several eating disorders. The exact neural circuit adaptations governing this behavior remain limitedly understood. The mesolimbic dopamine system plays a crucial role in the motivation to obtain (food) rewards and is also sensitive to stressors, making this an important candidate system to mediate the effects of stress on reward seeking. In the current study we set out to investigate how exposure to stress alters specific synaptic inputs to the mouse ventral tegmental area (VTA), a key node of the reward system. Activity in the VTA is controlled by a variety of synaptic inputs of different origins. We addressed which of these are sensitive to stress-induced modifications, by employing a strategy combining optogenetics and slice electrophysiology to assess stress-driven plasticity of specific VTA inputs. We stereotactically injected viral vectors to express channelrhodopsin into nuclei that innervate the VTA. After 3-4 weeks, mice were exposed to periods of stress, after which whole-cell voltage clamp recordings were made in the VTA and input-specific synaptic responses were evoked by short light pulses. Our findings suggest that stress indeed alters the synaptic strength of inputs to the VTA. Currently we are assessing the relevance of different types of afferents in this process, and aim to determine the behavioral relevance of their altered strength in terms of food consumption.