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Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) neurons that synthesize corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) drive binge alcohol drinking and anxiety. Here, we found that female C57BL/6J mice binge drink more than males and have greater basal BNST CRF neuron excitability and synaptic excitation. We identified a dense VGLUT2 + synaptic input from the paraventricular thalamus (PVT) that releases glutamate directly onto BNST CRF neurons but also engages a large BNST interneuron population to ultimately inhibit BNST CRF neurons, and this polysynaptic PVT VGLUT2 -BNST CRF circuit is more robust in females than males. Chemogenetic inhibition of the PVT BNST projection promoted binge alcohol drinking only in female mice, while activation reduced avoidance behavior in both sexes. Lastly, repeated binge drinking produced a female-like phenotype in the male PVT-BNST CRF excitatory synapse without altering the function of PVT BNST neurons per se. Our data describe a complex, feedforward inhibitory PVT VGLUT2 -BNST CRF circuit that is sex-dependent in its function, behavioral roles, and alcohol-induced plasticity., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Adolescent exposure to chronic stress, a risk factor for mood disorders in adulthood, sensitizes the neuroinflammatory response to a subsequent immune challenge. We previously showed that chronic adolescent stress (CAS) in rats led to distinct patterns of neuroimmune priming in adult male and female rats. However, sex differences in the neuroimmune consequences of CAS and their underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Here we hypothesized that biological sex would dictate differential induction of inflammation-related transcriptomic pathways and immune cell involvement (microglia activation and leukocyte presence) in the hippocampus of male and female rats with a history of CAS. Adolescent rats underwent CAS (six restraint and six social defeat episodes during postnatal days 38-49), and behavioral assessments were conducted in adolescence and adulthood. Neuroimmune measures were obtained following vehicle or a systemic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge in adulthood. CAS led to increased time in the corners of the open field in adolescence. In males, CAS also increased social avoidance. As adults, CAS rats displayed an exaggerated enrichment of the nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NFκB) pathway and chemokine induction following LPS challenge, and increased number of perivascular CD45 + cells in the hippocampus. However, CAS females, but not males, showed exaggerated glucocorticoid receptor (GR) pathway enrichment and increased microglial complexity. These results provide further insight to the mechanisms by which peripheral immune events may influence neuroimmune responses differentially among males and females and further demonstrate the importance of adolescent stress in shaping adult responses.

The paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) is a critical neural hub for the regulation of a variety of motivated behaviors, integrating stress and reward information from environmental stimuli to guide discrete behaviors via several limbic projections. Neurons in the PVT are activated by acute and chronic stressors, however several roles of the PVT in behavior modulation emerge only following repeated stress exposure, pointing to a role for hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis modulation of PVT function. Further, there may be a reciprocal relationship between the PVT and HPA axis in which chronic stress-induced recruitment of the PVT elicits an additional role for the PVT to regulate motivated behavior by modulating HPA physiology and thus the neuroendocrine response to stress itself. This complex interaction may make the PVT and its role in influencing motivated behavior particularly susceptible to chronic stress-induced plasticity in the PVT, especially in females who display increased susceptibility to stress-induced maladaptive behaviors associated with neuropsychiatric diseases. Though literature is describing the sex-specific effects of acute and chronic stress exposure on HPA axis activation and motivated behaviors, the impact of sex on the role of the PVT in modulating the behavioral and neuroendocrine response to stress is less well established. Here, we review what is currently known regarding the acute and chronic stress-induced activation and behavioral role of the PVT in male and female rodents. We further explore stress hormone and neuropeptide signaling mechanisms by which the HPA axis and PVT interact and discuss the implications for sex-dependent effects of chronic stress on the PVT's role in motivated behaviors., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Rowson and Pleil.)

Females that experience chronic stress during development, particularly adolescence, are the most vulnerable group to stress-induced disease. While considerable attention has been devoted to stress-induced manifestation of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, evidence indicates that a history of chronic stress is also a risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia - with females again in a higher risk group. This interplay between sex and stress history indicates specific mechanisms drive neural dysfunction across the lifespan. The presence of sex and stress steroid receptors in the hippocampus provides a point of influence for these variables to drive changes in cognitive function. Here, we used a rodent model of chronic adolescent stress (CAS) to determine the extent to which CAS modifies glutamatergic signaling resulting in cognitive dysfunction. Male and female Wistar rats born in-house remained non-stressed (NS), unmanipulated aside from standard cage cleaning, or were exposed to either physical restraint (60 min) or social defeat (CAS) each day (6 trials each), along with social isolation, throughout the adolescent period (PND 35-47). Cognition was assessed in adult (PND 80-130) male and female rats (n = 10-12) using the Barnes Maze task and the Attention Set-Shift task. Whole hippocampi were extracted from a second cohort of male and female rats (NS and CAS; n = 9-10) and processed for RNA sequencing. Brain tissue from the first cohort (n = 6) was processed for density of glutamatergic synaptic markers (GluA1, NMDA1a, and synaptophysin) or whole-cell patch clamping (n = 4) to determine glutamatergic activity in the hippocampus. Females with a history of chronic stress had shorter latencies to locate the goal box than NS controls during acquisition learning but showed an increased latency to locate the new goal box during reversal learning. This reversal deficit persisted across domains as females with a history of stress required more trials to reach criterion during the reversal phases of the Attention Set-Shift task compared to controls. Ovariectomy resulted in greater performance variability overall during reversal learning with CAS females showing worse performance. Males showed no effects of CAS history on learning or memory performance. Bioinformatic prediction using gene ontology categorization indicated that in females, postsynaptic membrane gene clusters, specifically genes related to glutamatergic synapse remodeling, were enriched with a history of stress. Structural analysis indicated that CAS did not alter glutamate receptor density in females. However, functionally, CAS females had a decreased AMPA/NMDA-dependent current ratio compared to controls indicating a weakening in synaptic strength in the hippocampus. Males showed only a slight change in density of NMDA1a labeling in the CA3 region with a history of stress. The data observed here suggest that females are at risk for impaired cognitive flexibility following a history of adolescent stress, possibly driven by changes in glutamatergic signaling., Competing Interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare., (© 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Chronic adolescent stress alters behavior in a sex-specific manner at the end of adolescence and in adulthood. Although prolonged behavioral repercussions of chronic adolescent stress have been documented, the potential underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. In this study we demonstrate that a history of chronic adolescent stress modified the adult stress response, as measured by corticosterone concentration, such that a history of chronic adolescent stress resulted in a blunted response to a novel acute stressor. In order to begin to address potential mechanistic underpinnings, we assessed the extent to which chronic adolescent stress impacted global DNA methylation. Reduced global hippocampal methylation was evident in females with a history of chronic adolescent stress; thus, it was possible that chronic adolescent stress altered global transcription in the whole hippocampi of adult male and female rats. In addition, because acute stress can stimulate a genomic response, we assessed the transcriptome following exposure to an acute novel stressor to determine the extent to which a history of chronic adolescent stress modifies the adult transcriptional response to an acute stressor in males and females. In addition to the reduction in global methylation, chronic adolescent stress resulted in distinct patterns of gene expression in the adult hippocampus that differentiated by sex. Furthermore, both sex and a history of chronic adolescent stress influenced the transcriptional response to an acute novel stressor in adulthood, suggesting both latent and functional effects of chronic adolescent stress at the level of gene transcription. Pathway analysis indicated that ESR1 and IFN-α may be particularly influential transcription factors mediating these transcriptional differences and suggest candidate mechanisms for future studies. Collectively, these studies demonstrate sex-specific and enduring effects of adolescent stress exposure that are more pronounced in females than in males.

Adversity during development is a reliable predictor of psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety which are increasingly recognized to have an immune component. We have previously demonstrated that chronic adolescent stress (CAS) in rats leads to depressive-like behavior in adulthood along with long-lasting changes to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and pro-inflammatory cytokine induction in the hippocampus. However, the mechanisms by which CAS promotes hippocampal inflammation are not yet defined. Here we tested the hypothesis that a history of CAS exaggerates induction of the pro-inflammatory NFκB pathway in the adult rat hippocampus without compromising the peripheral immune response. We also assessed potential sex differences because it is unclear whether females, who are twice as likely to suffer from mood disorders as males, are disproportionally affected by stress-primed inflammation. Male and female adolescent rats underwent a CAS paradigm or received no stress. Six weeks following the last stressor, all rats received a single systemic injection of either lipopolysaccharide or vehicle to unmask possible immune-priming effects of CAS. An NFκB signaling PCR array demonstrated that CAS exaggerated the expression of NFκB-related genes in the hippocampus of both males and females. Interestingly, targeted qPCR demonstrated that CAS potentiated the induction of hippocampal IL1B and REL mRNA in female rats only, suggesting that some immune effects of CAS are indeed sex-specific. In contrast to the hippocampal findings, indices of peripheral inflammation such as NFκB activity in the spleen, plasma IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, and corticosterone were not impacted by CAS in female rats. Despite showing no pro-inflammatory changes to hippocampal mRNA, male CAS rats displayed lower plasma corticosterone response to LPS at 2 h after injection followed by an exaggerated plasma IL-1β response at 4 h. This potentially blunted corticosterone response coupled with excessive innate immune signaling in the periphery is consistent with possible glucocorticoid resistance in males. In contrast, the effects of CAS manifested as excessive hippocampal immune reactivity in females. We conclude that while a history of exposure to chronic adolescent stress enhances adult immune reactivity in both males and females, the mechanism and manifestation of such alterations are sex-specific., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Accurate assessment of plasma corticosterone, the primary stress hormone in rodents, is an essential part of characterizing the stress response in experimental animals. To this end, both enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and radioimmunoassay (RIA) remain widely used. However, considerable assay-specific variability exists among commercially available corticosterone assays due to differing assay principles, detection methods, range, and sensitivity. While technical comparisons of commercially available corticosterone assays have previously been conducted, the ability to detect acute stress-induced endocrine changes has not been compared among these methods to date. Using the forced swim test, a commonly utilized behavioral paradigm in rodents as a physiologically-relevant acute stress challenge, we compared four commercial corticosterone assays - three ELISA kits and one RIA kit - in their ability to detect corticosterone across a dynamic range of both baseline and acute swim stress-driven concentrations. While all methods yielded results that were consistent at measuring relative differences between samples, only two of the four assays evaluated detected a statistically significant increase in corticosterone in rats exposed to acute swim stress compared to rats at baseline. The ELISA kit from Enzo Life Sciences demonstrated the greatest percent increase in plasma corticosterone from baseline to acute stress conditions. The RIA kit from MP Biomedicals also detected a significant corticosterone increase and yielded higher concentrations of corticosterone both at baseline and in the acute stress condition relative to the other three assays. We conclude that choice of assay can impact interpretation of data due to differences in efficacy across a dynamic range of physiological concentrations of corticosterone., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Adolescent stress exposure is a risk factor for drug abuse, and sex differences contribute to psychostimulant responses. Although many studies have utilized the Wistar rat strain in adolescent stress paradigms, the impact of adolescent stress exposure on addiction-like outcomes has not been rigorously tested in female Wistar rats. In this study, locomotor sensitization was assessed in adolescent and adult female Wistar rats following either chronic stress during adolescence (CAS) or no stress (NS). Adolescent, but not adult, female Wistar rats developed locomotor sensitization to 15 mg/kg cocaine over 5 days of treatment, regardless of stress history. CAS reduced the initial locomotor response to novelty in both adolescent and adult rats compared to NS controls but had no effect on locomotor sensitization to cocaine in adolescents or adult female rats. These studies expand our understanding of age and adolescent stress on cocaine-induced behavioral plasticity in female Wistar rats., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Mutual regulation and balance between the endocrine and immune systems facilitate an organism's stress response and are impaired following chronic stress or prolonged immune activation. Concurrent alterations in stress physiology and immunity are increasingly recognized as contributing factors to several stress-linked neuropsychiatric disorders including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Accumulating evidence suggests that impaired balance and crosstalk between the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NFκB) - effectors of the stress and immune axes, respectively - may play a key role in mediating the harmful effects of chronic stress on mood and behavior. Here, we first review the molecular mechanisms of GR and NFκB interactions in health, then describe potential shifts in the GR-NFκB dynamics in chronic stress conditions within the context of brain circuitry relevant to neuropsychiatric diseases. Furthermore, we discuss developmental influences and sex differences in the regulation of these two transcription factors., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has improved prognosis for people living with HIV (PLWH) and dramatically reduced the incidence of AIDS. However, even when viral load is controlled, PLWH develop psychiatric and neurological disorders more frequently than those living without HIV. Adolescents with HIV are particularly susceptible to the development of psychiatric illnesses and neurocognitive impairments. While both psychiatric and neurocognitive disorders have been found to be exacerbated by stress, the extent to which chronic stress and HIV-1 viral proteins interact to impact behavior and relevant neuroinflammatory processes is unknown. Determination of the individual contributions of stress and HIV to neuropsychiatric disorders is heavily confounded in humans. In order to isolate the influence of HIV-1 proteins and chronic stress on behavior and neuroinflammation, we employed the HIV-1 transgenic (Tg) rat model, which expresses HIV-1 proteins with a gag and pol deletion, allowing for viral protein expression without viral replication. This Tg line has been characterized as a model of HAART-controlled HIV-1 infection due to the lack of viral replication but continued presence of HIV-1 proteins. We exposed male and female adolescent HIV-1 Tg rats to a mixed-modality chronic stress paradigm consisting of isolation, social defeat and restraint, and assessed behavior, cerebral vascularization, and neuroinflammatory endpoints. Stress, sex, and presence of the HIV-1 transgene impacted weight gain in adolescent rats. Female HIV-1 Tg rats showed decreases in central tendency during the light cycle in the open field regardless of stress exposure. Both male and female HIV-1 Tg rats exhibited decreased investigative behavior in the novel object recognition task, but no memory impairments. Adolescent stress had no effect on the tested behaviors. Microglia in female HIV-1 Tg rats exhibited a hyper-ramified structure, and gene expression of complement factor B was increased in the hippocampus. In addition, adolescent stress exposure increased microglial branching and junctions in female wild-type rats without causing any additional increase in HIV-1 rats. These data suggest that the presence of HIV-1 proteins during development leads to alterations in behavioral and neuroinflammatory endpoints that are not further impacted by concurrent chronic adolescent stress.

While both glucocorticoids (the principal output of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) and oxidative stress have been implicated in outcomes due to an excessive or prolonged stress response, the precise mechanisms linking these two systems remain poorly elucidated. One potential mediator between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and oxidative stress is the hypoxia inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) pathway. HIF-1 is an oxygen-responsive transcription factor with diverse effects including changes in cellular metabolism. The experiments in this manuscript sought to determine if pharmacological stimulation of HIF-1α via administration of dimethyloxalylglycine (DMOG) would facilitate the corticosterone response to a mild acute stressor. DMOG administration significantly increased plasma corticosterone 5 min after an acute airpuff without changing baseline plasma corticosterone or plasma corticosterone level two hours post-startle. DMOG administration also reduced hippocampal gene expression of the pro-translocation co-chaperone for the glucocorticoid receptor, FKBP4, two hours after airpuff startle. At this same two-hour time point, hippocampal expression of FKBP5, an anti-translocation co-chaperone of the glucocorticoid receptor, in the DMOG-treated group was also positively correlated with plasma corticosterone levels. These data indicate that there is significant crosstalk between the hypothalamic-pituitary-axis and the HIF-1 pathway and extend the current knowledge of glucocorticoid and hypoxia interactions in an ethologically relevant stress model., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: The lymphatic system plays crucial roles in tissue fluid balance, trafficking of immune cells, and the uptake of dietary lipid from the intestine. Given these roles there has been an interest in targeting lymphatics through oral lipid-based formulations or intradermal delivery of drug carrier systems. However the mechanisms regulating lipid uptake by lymphatics remain unknown. Thus we sought to modify a previously developed in vitro model to investigate the role of ATP in lipid uptake into the lymphatics., Methods: Lymphatic endothelial cells were cultured on a transwell membrane and the effective permeability to free fatty acid and Caco-2 cell-secreted lipid was calculated in the presence or absence of the ATP inhibitor sodium azide., Results: ATP inhibition reduced Caco-2 cell-secreted lipid transport, but not dextran transport. FFA transport was ATP-dependent primarily during early periods of ATP inhibition, while Caco-2 cell-secreted lipid transport was lowered at all time points studied. Furthermore, the transcellular component of transport was highly ATP-dependent, a mechanism not observed in fibroblasts, suggesting these mechanisms are unique to lymphatics. Total transport of Caco-2 cell-secreted lipid was dose-dependently reduced by ATP inhibition, and transcellular lipoprotein transport was completely attenuated., Conclusion: The transport of lipid across the lymphatic endothelium as demonstrated with this in vitro model occurs in part by an ATP-dependent, transcellular route independent of passive permeability. It remains to be determined the extent that this mechanism exists in vivo and future work should be directed in this area.

The invasive nature of glioblastoma (GBM) represents a major clinical challenge contributing to poor outcomes. Invasion of GBM into healthy tissue restricts chemotherapeutic access and complicates surgical resection. Here, we test the hypothesis that an effective anti-invasive agent can "contain" GBM and increase the efficacy of chemotherapy. We report a new anti-invasive small molecule, Imipramine Blue (IB), which inhibits invasion of glioma in vitro when tested against several models. IB inhibits NADPH (reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) oxidase-mediated reactive oxygen species generation and alters expression of actin regulatory elements. In vivo, liposomal IB (nano-IB) halts invasion of glioma, leading to a more compact tumor in an aggressively invasive RT2 syngeneic astrocytoma rodent model. When nano-IB therapy was followed by liposomal doxorubicin (nano-DXR) chemotherapy, the combination therapy prolonged survival compared to nano-IB or nano-DXR alone. Our data demonstrate that nano-IB-mediated containment of diffuse glioma enhanced the efficacy of nano-DXR chemotherapy, demonstrating the promise of an anti-invasive compound as an adjuvant treatment for glioma.