title: Anxiety and Nicotine Dependence: Emerging Role of the Habenulo-Interpeduncular Axis.
abstract: While innovative modern neuroscience approaches have aided in discerning brain circuitry underlying negative emotional behaviors including fear and anxiety responses, how these circuits are recruited in normal and pathological conditions remains poorly understood. Recently, genetic tools that selectively manipulate single neuronal populations have uncovered an understudied circuit, the medial habenula (mHb)-interpeduncular (IPN) axis, that modulates basal negative emotional responses. Interestingly, the mHb-IPN pathway also represents an essential circuit that signals heightened anxiety induced by nicotine withdrawal. Insights into how this circuit interconnects with regions more classically associated with anxiety, and how chronic nicotine exposure induces neuroadaptations resulting in an anxiogenic state, may thereby provide novel strategies and molecular targets for therapies that facilitate smoking cessation, as well as for anxiety relief.
authors.affiliation: Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Susanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Molas
authors.affiliation: Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA; Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Steven R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: DeGroot
authors.affiliation: Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Rubing
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhao-Shea
authors.affiliation: Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA. Electronic address: andrew.tapper@umassmed.edu.
authors.forename: Andrew R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Tapper
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000209:etiology*; D003346:Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions; D019262:Habenula / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D066268:Interpeduncular Nucleus / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic / Q000502:physiology; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000209:etiology*; D017557:Ventral Tegmental Area / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic; D003346:Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone
keywords: anxiety; fear; interpeduncular nucleus; medial habenula; nicotine withdrawal