Applied Science Events
[PAST EVENT] "Monosynaptic Connection From the Central Amygdala to the preBötzinger Complex" (Advisor: Del Negro)
Breathing is a critical behavior essential for life. While breathing is often automatic, occurring continuously without intentional commands, it is highly modulatable to allow rapid and instantaneous adaptation to various biological demands for survival. However, little is known about how various emotional and affective “breathtaking” events actively modulate the breathing pattern. Although such emotional events entrain corticolimbic activities necessary for their perception which can indirectly modulate breathing through a plethora of polysynaptic pathways, more direct and express subcortical connections may exist to link the fundamental, biologically essential emotion and breathing pattern. Such a link might also underlie aberrant breathing in response to pathological cortical activities, as observed in sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. We demonstrate a direct relationship between two indispensable sites: the central amygdala (CeA), a major output hub of the amygdala, and the brainstem preBötzinger complex (preBötC), which generates the fundamental rhythm and pattern for breathing. Optogenetics-based electrophysiological analyses in isolated brain slices without corticolimbic connections in mice revealed monosynaptic and inhibitory CeA-preBötC connections. This pathway provides a mechanism for emotional or painful stimuli to arrest breathing. Moreover, the CeA-to-preBötC projection may help explain respiratory-related pathologies, such as sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, a fatality attributable to long-last apneas that follow seizures invading the CeA via the basolateral amygdala. The CeA-to-preBötC link may be involved in more mild anxiety-related conditions, which incorporate bradypnea or short apneas, or even panic. These results elucidate a link between emotions and breathing, both of which constitute key brain functions in humans and all mammals necessary for their survival.
Sponsored by: Applied Science
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Caroline Semmelmeier 757-221-3530