HCN2 channels in the ventral tegmental area regulate behavioral responses to chronic stress
- Medical College of Wisconsin, United States
- West Virginia University, United States
Abstract
Dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are powerful regulators of depression-related behavior. Dopamine neuron activity is altered in chronic stress-based models of depression, but the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Here, we show that mice subject to chronic mild unpredictable stress (CMS) exhibit anxiety- and depressive-like behavior, which was associated with decreased VTA dopamine neuron firing in vivo and ex vivo. Dopamine neuron firing is governed by voltage-gated ion channels, in particular hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels. Following CMS, HCN-mediated currents were decreased in nucleus accumbens-projecting VTA dopamine neurons. Furthermore, shRNA-mediated HCN2 knockdown in the VTA was sufficient to recapitulate CMS-induced depressive- and anxiety-like behavior in stress-naïve mice, whereas VTA HCN2 overexpression largely prevented CMS-induced behavioral deficits. Together, these results reveal a critical role for HCN2 in regulating VTA dopamine neuronal activity and depressive-related behaviors.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA035217)
- Qing-song Liu
National Institute of Mental Health (MH101146)
- Qing-song Liu
National Institute of Mental Health (F30MH115536)
- Casey R Vickstrom
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: Animal maintenance and use were in accordance with protocols approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Medical College of Wisconsin (#1166, #2420).
Copyright
© 2017, Zhong et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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HCN2 channels in the ventral tegmental area regulate behavioral responses to chronic stress
eLife 6:e32420.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32420
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