Looming visible stimuli drive formation of auditory and contextual worry reminiscence in mice. Credit score: bioRxiv (2024). DOI: 10.1101/2024.10.14.618356
Worry recollections can kind within the mind following publicity to threatening conditions akin to pure disasters, accidents, or violence. When these recollections develop into extreme or distorted, they’ll result in extreme psychological well being problems, together with post-traumatic stress dysfunction (PTSD), nervousness problems, and despair. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying worry reminiscence formation triggered by affective ache quite than direct bodily ache have remained largely unexplored—till now.
A KAIST analysis group has recognized, for the primary time, a mind circuit particularly accountable for forming worry recollections within the absence of bodily ache, marking a major advance in understanding how psychological misery is processed and drives worry reminiscence formation within the mind. This discovery opens the door to the event of focused therapies for trauma-related circumstances by addressing the underlying neural pathways.
The work is revealed within the journal Science Advances.
The group, led by Professor Jin-Hee Han within the Division of Organic Sciences, has recognized the pIC-PBN circuit, a key neural pathway concerned in forming worry recollections triggered by psychological threats within the absence of sensory ache. This work was carried out by way of experiments with mice. The newly recognized, descending neural pathway from the posterior insular cortex (pIC) to the parabrachial nucleus (PBN) is specialised for transmitting psychological menace data.
Historically, the lateral parabrachial nucleus (PBN) has been acknowledged as a vital a part of the ascending ache pathway, receiving ache indicators from the spinal twine. Nevertheless, this examine reveals a beforehand unknown function for the PBN in processing worry induced by non-painful psychological stimuli, essentially altering our understanding of its perform within the mind.
This work is taken into account the primary experimental proof that emotional misery and bodily ache are processed by way of completely different neural circuits to kind worry recollections, making it a major contribution to the sphere of neuroscience. It clearly demonstrates the existence of a devoted pathway (pIC-PBN) for transmitting emotional misery.
The examine’s first creator, Dr. Junho Han, shared the private motivation behind this analysis: “Our dog, Lego, is afraid of motorcycles. He never actually crashed into one, but ever since having a traumatizing event of having a motorbike almost run into him, just hearing the sound now triggers a fearful response. Humans react similarly—even if you didn’t have a personal experience of being involved in an accident, a near-miss or exposure to alarming media can create lasting fear memories, which may eventually lead to PTSD.”
He continued, “Until now, fear memory research has mainly relied on experimental models involving physical pain. However, much of real-world human fears arise from psychological threats, rather than from direct physical harm. Despite this, little was known about the brain circuits responsible for processing these psychological threats that can drive fear memory formation.”
To research this, the analysis group developed a novel worry conditioning mannequin that makes use of visible menace stimuli as a substitute {of electrical} shocks. On this mannequin, mice had been uncovered to a quickly increasing visible disk on a ceiling display screen, simulating the specter of an approaching predator. This strategy allowed the group to reveal that worry recollections can kind in response to a non-nociceptive, psychological menace alone, with out the necessity for bodily ache.
Utilizing superior chemogenetic and optogenetic methods, the group exactly managed neuronal exercise, revealing that the lateral parabrachial nucleus (PBN) is crucial to kind worry recollections in response to visible threats. They additional traced the origin of those indicators to the posterior insular cortex (pIC), a area identified to course of unfavourable feelings and ache, confirming a direct connection between the 2 areas.
The examine additionally confirmed that inhibiting the pIC–PBN circuit considerably decreased worry reminiscence formation in response to visible threats, with out affecting innate worry responses or bodily pain-based studying. Conversely, artificially activating this circuit alone was enough to drive worry reminiscence formation, confirming its function as a key pathway for processing psychological menace data.
Professor Jin-Hee Han commented, “This study lays an important foundation for understanding how emotional distress-based mental disorders, such as PTSD, panic disorder, and anxiety disorder, develop, and opens new possibilities for targeted treatment approaches.”
Extra data:
Junho Han et al, A top-down insular cortex circuit essential for non-nociceptive worry studying, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt6996
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The Korea Superior Institute of Science and Know-how (KAIST)
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A key neural pathway reveals how the mind types worry recollections from psychological threats (2025, Might 15)
retrieved 16 Might 2025
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