The paradoxical effects of chronic stress on avoidance: a role for amygdala-dorsomedial prefrontal cortex dialogue

Abstract

Chronic stress has been a pervasive factor during the new-normal of the COVID era. Notably, although moderate stress is critical for adaptation in a changing world, prolonged stress exposure can lead to an array of mental health conditions, often associated with structural changes in brain regions that affect emotional learning, such as the amygdala, the frontal cortices, and the hippocampus. To better target treatments, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the physiological and behavioral consequences of increased exposure to chronic stress. To this end, rodent behavioral tasks have been instrumental for probing symptoms of stressinduced behavioral change, including the social interaction test, the sucrose preference test, and the forced swim test to study increased social avoidance, anhedonia, and decreased motivation, respectively.