Potential new strategy for relieving anxiety
Serotonin in the cerebellum alleviates anxiety-like behavior in mice, which counters the previously accepted role of serotonin in anxiety and may point to new treatment strategies.
Understanding the neural circuits that drive anxiety may help researchers discover circuit-specific targets and therefore increase the precision of treatment strategies. Previous studies have separately suggested that increased serotonin levels and the cerebellum may play roles in anxiety. To explore the relationship between these ideas, Pei Chin, from the University of Pennsylvania, and George Augustine, from Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, probed whether serotonin in the cerebellum causes anxiety behavior in mice. Contrary to previous findings, mice displaying anxiety-like behavior had lower amounts of cerebellar serotonin, while less anxious mice had increased serotonin in the cerebellum. Chin and Augustine then discovered that they could bidirectionally influence anxiety behavior by artificially stimulating or inhibiting the neurons that release serotonin into the cerebellum. According to the authors, this newfound role of cerebellar serotonin as a “brake” to alleviate anxiety is informative for work in more advanced animal models and the development of new treatment strategies.
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About JNeurosci
JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.
About The Society for Neuroscience
The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries.
Journal
JNeurosci
How perception may shape health safety-related assessments
Perceived trustworthiness of others alters activity in different brain networks to drive what may be “safety” and “alarm” signals.
Society for Neuroscience
Perceiving whether another person is a personal health risk requires quickly assessing their trustworthiness. With limited characteristics available, implicit assumptions often influence risk perception. Research in this area has pointed to brain regions that may be involved in perceiving others as untrustworthy or as carriers of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). However, the relationship between brain activity, perceived trustworthiness of others, and perceived likelihood of acquiring an STD was unclear prior to a recent study published in eNeuro. In the study led by Daniela Mier at the University of Konstanz, participants viewed pictures of people and assessed their trustworthiness. The same images had been evaluated in a previous study as having high or low odds of HIV transmission. People in the images with lower perceived odds of HIV transmission were generally considered more trustworthy in the current study by Mier’s group. Brain imaging revealed that perceived low risk of HIV transmission and high trustworthiness both resulted in higher activation of a brain region in the reward network, which may be a “safety signal” in the brain. Conversely, people with higher perceived odds of HIV transmission were more often deemed untrustworthy by participants. But comparisons across groups showed that distrust alone—and not necessarily high likelihood of HIV transmission—led to more activation of brain regions in a different network called the salience network, which may serve as the brain’s “alarm signal.” Ultimately, how humans perceive others seems to alter the activation of reward and salience networks that might play a role in making assessments about the risk others pose to one’s own safety.
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Please contact media@sfn.org for the full-text PDF.
About eNeuro
eNeuro is an online, open-access journal published by the Society for Neuroscience. Established in 2014, eNeuro publishes a wide variety of content, including research articles, short reports, reviews, commentaries and opinions.
About The Society for Neuroscience
The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries.
Journal
eNeuro
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Are You Safe or Should I Go? How Perceived Trustworthiness and Probability of a Sexual Transmittable Infection Impact Activation of the Salience Network
Article Publication Date
10-Feb-2025
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