In response to stressors, individuals adopt different behavioral styles, which are essential for survival and form the basis of differential susceptibility to stress-related disorders. Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) have predominantly been studied in behavioral response to stress, while the role of mPFC CRF neurons is poorly understood. Using morphology, electrophysiology, and calcium imaging approaches, we characterized mPFC CRF neurons as a unique subtype of GABAergic inhibitory interneurons that were directly engaged in the tail suspension challenge. Genetic ablation or chemogenetic inhibition of dorsal mPFC (dmPFC) CRF neurons increased immobility under the tail-suspension and forced-swimming challenges and induced social avoidance behavior, whereas activation had the opposite effect on the same measures. Furthermore, increasing CRF neuronal activity promoted durable resilience to repeated social defeat stress. These results uncover a critical role of mPFC CRF interneurons in bidirectionally controlling motivated behavioral style selection under stress.

中文翻译：

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前额叶皮质促肾上腺皮质激素释放因子神经元在具有挑战性的情况下控制行为风格选择。

为应对压力源，个体采取不同的行为方式，这对生存至关重要，并构成对压力相关疾病的不同易感性的基础。促肾上腺皮质激素释放因子 (CRF) 和内侧前额叶皮层 (mPFC) 主要在对压力的行为反应中进行研究，而 mPFC CRF 神经元的作用知之甚少。使用形态学、电生理学和钙成像方法，我们将 mPFC CRF 神经元表征为直接参与尾悬挑战的 GABA 能抑制中间神经元的独特亚型。背侧 mPFC (dmPFC) CRF 神经元的遗传消融或化学抑制增加了尾部悬吊和强迫游泳挑战下的不动性，并诱导了社交回避行为，而激活对相同的措施有相反的影响。此外，增加 CRF 神经元活动促进了对反复社交失败压力的持久弹性。这些结果揭示了 mPFC CRF 中间神经元在双向控制压力下的动机行为风格选择中的关键作用。