Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

In Canada, mood and anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental illness affecting 4.0 million people; by 2041 this number is estimated to grow to over 4.9 million. The need to find effective treatment for the debilitating effects of anxiety is of the utmost importance for our society. To do so, it is imperative to identify the unknown cellular changes responsible for the unknown transition from adaptive to maladaptive anxiety. Experimental models in rats mimic stress-like behaviour in humans allowing us to investigate cellular mechanisms that underlie the behaviour. The chronic unpredictable stress (CUS) paradigm entails mirroring the daily stressors experienced by humans to model pathological anxiety. Our combination of electrophysiology and CUS behaviour is specifically designed to link pathological anxiety to cellular mechanisms. We focus on the oval bed nucleus stria terminalis (ovBNST), an important area in pathological anxiety, where neuropeptide neurotensin (NT) is highly concentrated. It is currently unknown if NT is involved in the underlying cellular mechanisms of the ovBNST in pathological anxiety but our preliminary study suggest it plays an important role. We blocked NT release in the ovBNST in CUS rats and discovered NT potently promotes anxiety behaviour. Therefore, we hypothesize that NT plays an important role in modulating pathological anxiety-related behaviour in the ovBNST. We want to identify the mechanisms by which NT regulates anxiety-related behaviour, an essential step towards basic understanding of these disorders.