Reward behaviour is regulated by the strength of hippocampus–nucleus accumbens synapses

Tara A. LeGates, Mark D. Kvarta, Jessica R. Tooley, T. Chase Francis, Mary Kay Lobo, Meaghan C. Creed and Scott M. Thompson ()
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Tara A. LeGates: University of Maryland School of Medicine
Mark D. Kvarta: University of Maryland School of Medicine
Jessica R. Tooley: University of Maryland School of Medicine
T. Chase Francis: University of Maryland School of Medicine
Mary Kay Lobo: University of Maryland School of Medicine
Meaghan C. Creed: University of Maryland School of Medicine
Scott M. Thompson: University of Maryland School of Medicine

Nature, 2018, vol. 564, issue 7735, 258-262

Abstract: Abstract Reward drives motivated behaviours and is essential for survival, and therefore there is strong evolutionary pressure to retain contextual information about rewarding stimuli. This drive may be abnormally strong, such as in addiction, or weak, such as in depression, in which anhedonia (loss of pleasure in response to rewarding stimuli) is a prominent symptom. Hippocampal input to the shell of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is important for driving NAc activity1,2 and activity-dependent modulation of the strength of this input may contribute to the proper regulation of goal-directed behaviours. However, there have been few robust descriptions of the mechanisms that underlie the induction or expression of long-term potentiation (LTP) at these synapses, and there is, to our knowledge, no evidence about whether such plasticity contributes to reward-related behaviour. Here we show that high-frequency activity induces LTP at hippocampus–NAc synapses in mice via canonical, but dopamine-independent, mechanisms. The induction of LTP at this synapse in vivo drives conditioned place preference, and activity at this synapse is required for conditioned place preference in response to a natural reward. Conversely, chronic stress, which induces anhedonia, decreases the strength of this synapse and impairs LTP, whereas antidepressant treatment is accompanied by a reversal of these stress-induced changes. We conclude that hippocampus–NAc synapses show activity-dependent plasticity and suggest that their strength may be critical for contextual reward behaviour.

Keywords: Reward Behavior; Conditioned Place Preference (CPP); Sucrose Preference; Excitatory Postsynaptic Currents (EPSCs); Patch Cord (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0740-8

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