Probing Neuro-Endocrine Interactions Through Wireless Magnetothermal Stimulation of Peripheral Organs

Abstract

Exposure to stress alters hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity; however, it is unclear exactly how or where within the HPA pathway these changes occur. Dissecting these mechanisms requires tools to reliably probe HPA function, particularly the adrenal component, with temporal precision. We previously demonstrated magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) technology to remotely trigger adrenal hormone release by activating thermally sensitive ion channels. Here, we applied adrenal magnetothermal stimulation to probe stress-induced HPA axis changes. MNP and control nanoparticles were injected into the adrenal glands of outbred rats subjected to a tone-shock conditioning/extinction/recall paradigm. We measured MNP-triggered adrenal release before and after conditioning through physiologic (heart rate) and serum (epinephrine, corticosterone) markers. Aversive conditioning altered adrenal function, reducing corticosterone and blunting heart rate increases post-conditioning. MNP-based organ stimulation provides a novel approach to probing the function of HPA and other neuro-endocrine axes and could help elucidate changes across stress and disease models.

Neuron- and microglia-specific immunoexpression in steroid-independent male sexual behaviour in castrated B6D2F1 male mice

“…This would imply molecular mechanisms involving APP and GR, for instance, through BDNF (reviewed in (MacPherson, 2017)), and dopamine 1 receptor ((Wu et al ., 2016), respectively, could be justified for data-driven hypothesis of further detailed dissection to comprehend steroid-independent sexual behaviour. This could subsequently result in cell-specific genetic manipulation of the behaviour through vanguard technology such as with the CRISPR-Cas system (Goell & Hilton, 2021), and chemomagnetics (Maeng et al ., 2021).…”