ArticleBiological psychiatry2018
Anhedonia Following Early-Life Adversity Involves Aberrant Interaction of Reward and Anxiety Circuits and Is Reversed by Partial Silencing of Amygdala Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone Gene.
Article in Biological psychiatry, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 152 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
152 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 226 citations in OpenAlex.
- Enduring effects of early-life adversity on reward processes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of animal studies.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Early adversity promotes adolescent avoidance behavior by enhancing prefrontal-amygdala communication through CRHbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Nociceptin orphanin F/Q Pathways are dysregulated by stress and modulate reward responsiveness and motivated behavior across species.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Loss of pleasure (Anhedonia): A sex-dependent, cross-species consequence of unpredictable signals to the perinatal brain.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Early life adversity disrupts adult social reward motivation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Probing biomarkers and clinical utility of reward learning across species using the Probabilistic Reward Task: 20 years of findings.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Early resource scarcity drives persistent transcriptional changes and vascular remodeling in the female prefrontal cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Early-life stress impairs development of functional interactions and neuronal activity within prefrontal-amygdala networks in vivo.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Peptide signaling in the paraventricular thalamus contributes to disrupted adult reward behaviors after early-life adversity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Attachment Theory: Novel Clinical and Molecular Insights.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Anhedonia underlies the association between childhood unpredictability and adult PTSD symptoms: Evidence from three independent longitudinal cohorts.Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Sex and Stress Govern the Function and Innervation of a Basolateral Amygdala to Nucleus Accumbens Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone/GABA-Expressing Projection.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Altered Habenula Resting-State Functional Connectivity and Spatial Associations with Neurotransmitter Receptor Distribution of Major Depressive Disorder with and without Anhedonia.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Article
- Neurobiology of resilience to early life stress.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Hearing and early life adversity: effects of developmental stress on sensory processing.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Social circuits under developmental threat: Bridging rodent and human neuroscience.Developmental review : DR · 2025Article
- Erratic Maternal Care Induces Avoidant-Like Attachment Deficits in a Mouse Model of Early Life Adversity.eNeuro · 2025Article
- Reconfiguration of brain-wide neural activity after early life adversity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Subregional amygdala functional connectivity abnormalities and anhedonia impairments in first-episode schizophrenia.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
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9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
backgroundAnhedonia, the diminished ability to experience pleasure, is an important dimensional entity linked to depression, schizophrenia, and other emotional disorders, but its origins and mechanisms are poorly understood. We have previously identified anhedonia, manifest as decreased sucrose preference and social play, in adolescent male rats that experienced chronic early-life adversity/stress (CES). Here we probed the molecular, cellular, and circuit processes underlying CES-induced anhedonia and tested them mechanistically.
methodsWe examined functional brain circuits and neuronal populations activated by social play in adolescent CES and control rats. Structural connectivity between stress- and reward-related networks was probed using high-resolution diffusion tensor imaging, and cellular/regional activation was probed using c-Fos. We employed viral-genetic approaches to reduce corticotropin-releasing hormone (Crh) expression in the central nucleus of the amygdala in anhedonic rats, and tested for anhedonia reversal in the same animals.
resultsSucrose preference was reduced in adolescent CES rats. Social play, generally considered an independent measure of pleasure, activated brain regions involved in reward circuitry in both control and CES groups. In CES rats, social play activated Crh-expressing neurons in the central nucleus of the amygdala, typically involved in anxiety/fear, indicating aberrant functional connectivity of pleasure/reward and fear circuits. Diffusion tensor imaging tractography revealed increased structural connectivity of the amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex in CES rats. Crh-short hairpin RNA, but not control short hairpin RNA, given into the central nucleus of the amygdala reversed CES-induced anhedonia without influencing other emotional measures.
conclusionsThese findings robustly demonstrate aberrant interactions of stress and reward networks after early-life adversity and suggest mechanistic roles for Crh-expressing amygdala neurons in emotional deficits portending major neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.