Chronic gut inflammation impairs contextual control of fear.

Chronic inflammatory diseases are highly comorbid with anxiety in humans. The extent to which chronic inflammation is responsible for this relationship remains to be determined. We therefore tested the hypothesis that prolonged, but not brief, gut inflammation is sufficient to evoke anxiety-related behaviours in mice.

Acute gut inflammation reduces neural activity and spine maturity in hippocampus but not basolateral amygdala.

Gastrointestinal tract (gut) inflammation increases stress and threat-coping behaviors, which are associated with altered activity in fear-related neural circuits, such as the basolateral amygdala and hippocampus. It remains to be determined whether inflammation from the gut affects neural activity by altering dendritic spines. We hypothesized that acute inflammation alters dendritic spines in a brain region-specific manner.

Neuroinflammatory remodeling of the anterior cingulate cortex as a key driver of mood disorders in gastrointestinal disease and disorders.

Most gastrointestinal diseases and disorders (GIDD) are associated with depression, anxiety, and cognitive dysfunction. This suggests that shared features of GIDD, particularly chronic pain and inflammation, affect specific neural targets. The critical review of clinical and animal research presented here reveals that anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a primary target.

Chronic unpredictable stress shifts rat behavior from exploration to exploitation.

Chronic stress evokes wide-ranging behavioral alterations, including risk avoidance, increased motoric output, and reduced consummatory behaviors. These are often interpreted as dysfunctions, but they may subserve adaptations for coping with existential threats. We tested this in a cohort of rats previously exposed to mild unpredictable stress for 5 weeks.

Behavioral adaptations in a relapsing mouse model of colitis.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is characterized by relapsing periods of gut inflammation, and is comorbid with depression, anxiety, and cognitive deficits. Animal models of IBD that explore the behavioral consequences almost exclusively use acute models of gut inflammation, which fails to recapitulate the cyclic, chronic nature of IBD. This study sought to identify behavioral differences in digging, memory, and stress-coping strategies in mice exposed to one (acute) or three (chronic) cycles of gut inflammation, using the dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) model of colitis.