학술논문

Ultrasound Stimulation Attenuates CRS-Induced Depressive Behavior by Modulating Dopamine Release in the Prefrontal Cortex
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng. Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, IEEE Transactions on. 32:1314-1323 2024
Subject
Bioengineering
Computing and Processing
Robotics and Control Systems
Signal Processing and Analysis
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Mice
Ultrasonic imaging
Brain modeling
Sugar
Animals
Depression
Transducers
chronic stress
dopamine
VTA
mPFC
focused ultrasound stimulation
Language
ISSN
1534-4320
1558-0210
Abstract
Depression is one of the most serious mental disorders affecting modern human life and is often caused by chronic stress. Dopamine system dysfunction is proposed to contribute to the pathophysiology of chronic stress, especially the ventral tegmental area (VTA) which mainly consists of dopaminergic neurons. Focused ultrasound stimulation (FUS) is a promising neuromodulation modality and multiple studies have demonstrated effective ultrasonic activation of cortical, subcortical, and related networks. However, the effects of FUS on the dopamine system and the potential link to chronic stress-induced depressive behaviors are relatively unknown. Here, we measured the effects of FUS targeting VTA on the improvement of depression-like behavior and evaluated the dopamine concentration in the downstream region - medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). We found that targeting VTA FUS treatment alleviated chronic restraint stress (CRS) -induced anhedonia and despair behavior. Using an in vivo photometry approach, we analyzed the dopamine signal of mPFC and revealed a significant increase following the FUS, positively associated with the improvement of anhedonia behavior. FUS also protected the dopaminergic neurons in VTA from the damage caused by CRS exposure. Thus, these results demonstrated that targeting VTA FUS treatment significantly rescued the depressive-like behavior and declined dopamine level of mPFC induced by CRS. These beneficial effects of FUS might be due to protection in the DA neuron of VTA. Our findings suggest that FUS treatment could serve as a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of stress-related disorders.