IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-60512-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Acute stress causes sex-specific changes to ventral subiculum synapses, circuitry, and anxiety-like behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Carley N. Miller

    (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus)

  • Yuan Li

    (University of California)

  • Kevin T. Beier

    (University of California
    University of California
    University of California
    University of California)

  • Jason Aoto

    (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus)

Abstract

Experiencing a single severe stressor is sufficient to drive sexually dimorphic psychiatric disease development. The ventral subiculum (vSUB) emerges as a site where stress may induce sexually dimorphic adaptations due to its sex-specific organization and pivotal role in stress integration. Using a 1 h acute restraint stress model in mice, we uncover that stress causes a net decrease in vSUB activity in females driven by adrenergic receptor signaling. By contrast, males exhibit a net increase in vSUB activity that is driven by corticosterone signaling. We further identified sexually dimorphic changes in vSUB output to the anterior bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and in anxiety-like behaviors in response to stress. These findings reveal striking changes in psychiatric disease-relevant brain regions and behavior following stress with sex-, cell-type, and synapse-specificity that contribute to our understanding of sexually dimorphic adaptations that may shape stress-related psychiatric disease risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Carley N. Miller & Yuan Li & Kevin T. Beier & Jason Aoto, 2025. "Acute stress causes sex-specific changes to ventral subiculum synapses, circuitry, and anxiety-like behavior," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-60512-y
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-60512-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60512-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-60512-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-60512-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.