Talk abstracts
Talk on Wednesday 10:20-10:40am submitted by Laurence Coutellier
Contribution of prefrontal GABAergic transmission to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders
Laurence Coutellier (Speaker selected by Neuroscience Graduate Program students)
Abstract:
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) exerts a top-down control on various limbic and sub-cortical regions that regulate emotion, reward processing and cognitive functions. Prefrontal disturbances are thus believed to contribute to multiple aspects of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions, including attention and contextual information processing deficits in schizophrenia, hyperactivity in autism, or lack of motivation and anhedonia in depression. Disruptions of prefrontal functions can occur either during development or during adulthood through the action of genetic or environmental insults. In adolescence, the PFC undergoes drastic functional and structural changes, defining a period of extreme vulnerability. In adulthood, the PFC is also known to be particularly sensitive to the effects of stress. Because the functioning of the PFC is determined by the fine tuning of network oscillations that are mostly orchestrated by local GABAergic inhibitory interneurons, it is likely that disruption of the prefrontal GABAergic system contributes to abnormal communication between the PFC and downstream regions and to behavioral abnormalities characteristic of psychiatric disorders. In this talk I will present experimental evidence in mice demonstrating that genetic- or environmental-induced disturbances of the prefrontal GABAergic system during adolescence and adulthood contribute to cognitive and emotional impairments.
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