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Effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on the excitability of glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons in dorsal and ventral hippocampus in mice 

LIU Dong-Bo^1,*, SHI Yan², ZHENG Shen-Ping³, ZHOU Hao-Ran³, ZHAO Li-Wei³

¹Department of Anatomy, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu 233030, China；²Department of Ultrasound Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu 233004, China；³School of Clinical Medicine, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu 233030, China

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on electrophysiological characteristics of glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons in dorsal hippocampus (dHPC) and ventral hippocampus (vHPC) in mice, and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the plasticity of hippocampal neurons and memory regulation after PTSD. Male C57Thy1-YFP/GAD67-GFP mice were randomly divided into PTSD group and control group. Unavoidable foot shock (FS) was applied to establish PTSD model. The spatial learning ability was explored by water maze test, and the changes in electrophysiological characteristics of glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons in dHPC and vHPC were examined using whole-cell recording method. The results showed that FS significantly reduced the movement speed, and enhanced the number and percentage of freezing. PTSD significantly prolonged the escape latency in localization avoidance training, shortened the swimming time in the original quadrant, extended the swimming time in the contralateral quadrant, and increased absolute refractory period, energy barrier and inter-spike interval of glutamatergic neurons in dHPC and GABAergic neurons in vHPC, while decreased absolute refractory period, energy barrier and inter-spike interval of GABAergic neurons in dHPC and glutamatergic neurons in vHPC. These results suggest that PTSD can damage spatial perception of mice, down-regulate the excitability of dHPC and up-regulate the excitability of vHPC, and the underlying mechanism may involve the regulation of spatial memory by the plasticity of neurons in dHPC and vHPC.

Key words: post-traumatic stress disorder; glutamatergic neuron; GABAergic neuron; water maze; mouse

Received: 　　Accepted:

Corresponding author: 刘冬播　　E-mail: liudongbo@bbmc.edu.cn

Citing This Article：

LIU Dong-Bo, SHI Yan, ZHENG Shen-Ping, ZHOU Hao-Ran, ZHAO Li-Wei. Effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on the excitability of glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons in dorsal and ventral hippocampus in mice . Acta Physiol Sin 2023; 75 (3): 369-378 (in Chinese with English abstract).