Region-Specific Maladaptive Myelination Contributes To Differential Susceptibility To Stress-Induced Avoidance And Acute Threat Reactivity In Humans And Rodents

BackgroundThis talk will examine the role of maladaptive myelination as a potential mechanism underpinning individual variability of the stress response, and specifically, stress recovery as a resilience mechanism.MethodsRodents and human studies will be presented. A multimodal approach to characterizing behavior revealed that exposure of rats to a single, severe stressor induces a spectrum of anxiety-like behaviors across avoidance, startle, and fear-learning domains. Immunohistochemistry was used to follow oligodendrocytes maturation and myelin. In humans, MRI studies conducted on a cohort of 40 veterans correlated with neuropsychiatric evaluation.ResultsOligodendrocyte and myelin in the hippocampus were associated with stress-induced place avoidance. In contrast, myelin in the amygdala, correlates with contextual fear learning. These findings demonstrate region-specific oligodendrocyte and …