ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
Activity in a prefrontal-periaqueductal gray circuit overcomes behavioral and endocrine features of the passive coping stress response.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cholecystokinin input from the anterior cingulate cortex to the lateral periaqueductal gray mediates nocebo pain behavior in mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- Prefrontal contribution to passive coping behaviour in chronic stress and treatment by fast-acting antidepressant.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Stress Coping Style Alters Functional Brain Network Activity to Acute Stressor.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Quantitative profiling of whole-brain connectomes at single-axon resolution using deep learning and high-resolution light sheet microscopy.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Dihydrotestosterone regulation of stress-related behaviors in mice exposed to subchronic variable stress.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- A projection from the medial prefrontal cortex to the lateral septum modulates coping behavior on the shock-probe test.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Article
- Prophylactic (R,S)-Ketamine and (2S,6S)-Hydroxynorketamine Decrease Fear Expression by Differentially Modulating Fear Neural Ensembles.Biological psychiatry · 2025Article
- Distinguishing neural ensembles in the infralimbic cortex that regulate stress vulnerability and coping behavior.Neurobiology of stress · 2025Article
- A cell type-specific mechanism driving the rapid antidepressant effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Willingness to wait covaries with endogenous variation in cortisol.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- A Prefrontal→Periaqueductal Gray Pathway Differentially Engages Autonomic, Hormonal, and Behavioral Features of the Stress-Coping Response.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Prefrontal projections to the bed nuclei of the stria terminalis modulate the specificity of aversive memories.Research square · 2024Article
- The cortisol switch between vulnerability and resilience.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- One respiratory cycle as a minimum time unit for making behavioral decisions in the mammalian olfactory system.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Coping with the multifaceted and multifunctional role of cortisol in the brain.Neuroscience applied · 2024Review
- Sex differences in androgen receptor, estrogen receptor alpha, and c-Fos co-expression with corticotropin releasing factor expressing neurons in restrained adult mice.Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
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8 authors.
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Abstract
The question of how the brain links behavioral and biological features of defensive responses has remained elusive. The importance of this problem is underscored by the observation that behavioral passivity in stress coping is associated with elevations in glucocorticoid hormones, and each may carry risks for susceptibility to a host of stress-related diseases. Past work implicates the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in the top-down regulation of stress-related behaviors; however, it is unknown whether such changes have the capacity to buffer against the longer-lasting biological consequences associated with aversive experiences. Using the shock probe defensive burying test in rats to naturalistically measure behavioral and endocrine features of coping, we observed that the active behavioral component of stress coping is associated with increases in activity along a circuit involving the caudal mPFC and midbrain dorsolateral periaqueductal gray (PAG). Optogenetic manipulations of the caudal mPFC-to-dorsolateral PAG pathway bidirectionally modulated active (escape and defensive burying) behaviors, distinct from a rostral mPFC-ventrolateral PAG circuit that instead limited passive (immobility) behavior. Strikingly, under conditions that biased rats toward a passive coping response set, including exaggerated stress hormonal output and increased immobility, excitation of the caudal mPFC-dorsolateral PAG projection significantly attenuated each of these features. These results lend insight into how the brain coordinates response features to overcome passive coping and may be of importance for understanding how activated neural systems promote stress resilience.
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