Role of the Lateral Habenula in the genesis of depressive disorders and formation of aversive memories.

JOAQUIN PIRIZ

Bilbao

Conferencia; Seminarios Achucarro; 2015

Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience

The Lateral Habenula (LHb) is a small epithalamic brain structure that exerts a powerful inhibitory action over brainstem monoaminergic systems. The LHb started to be considered a key piece of brain circuits of reward since it was identified as the structure responsible of negative value assignment. Such a role could potentially relate this structure to many situations in which the evaluation of negative events is disturbed, such as depressive disorders. During this conference I will present our results indicating the LHb as a brain region involved in the genesis of depressive disorders and in the modulation of temporal stability of aversive memories. In addition I will present and discuss recent data demonstrating that the LHb is targeted by GABA/glutamate co-releasing synapses in which the ratio those neurotransmitters is modulated by depression related situations