Avoid meeting depression patients, brain nerve circuit abnormalities
Jul 08, 2025
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Konkuk University recently announced that a research team led by Professor Jeong Ji-hye (department of life science characteristics) and Professor Park Ho-yong (KU Neuroscience Research Institute) succeeded in identifying brain neural circuits that degrade sociality in depression. The study was published last month in the international journal Progress in Neurobiology in the field of neuroscience.
In an experiment with mice, the research team found that the neural circuit from the prefrontal (mPFC) to the lateral dendritic nucleus (LHb) greatly affects social behavior. The prefrontal lobe is responsible for emotional regulation and social behavior, and the lateral dendritic nucleus is the brain region involved in stress responses. Researchers at Konkuk University have consistently found through prior research that this area tends to be overactivated in animal models with depression and stress.
As a result of the study, stressed mice showed evasive behavior in situations where they encountered other mice with overactivation of the prefrontal and lateral dendritic circuits. On the other hand, when optogenetics (optical genetics) techniques inhibited the activity of this circuit, the mice again restored social behavior that naturally matched other individuals. The circuit is also connected to the dopamine compensation system, which is also related to the ability to feel social rewards, and electrophysiological experiments have also confirmed that cells connected to the dopamine center, not the entire lateral dendritic nucleus, are more active, especially under the influence of the prefrontal lobe.
The research team is expected to provide an important clue to the development of new treatment strategies for social rehabilitation, scientifically proving that the representative symptom of depression called social atrophy is not just a mood problem but an overactivity of certain brain circuits"It is significant as the first case in an animal model to prove that not only social stress but also physical stress can affect social behavior" he said.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
