Maturation of silent synapses in amygdala-accumbens projection contributes to incubation of cocaine craving

BLA (basal amygdaloid nucleus) UBERON:0002887 projects to ACB (Nucleus accumbens) UBERON:0001882 · Rat

After injecting an AAV2 driving ChR2-YFP into the basolateral amygdala, labelled somata and processes were seen at the injection site and abundant YFP-positive axonal fibres were found in the accumbens shell, indicating anterograde transport of the fluorescent protein along the amygdala axons.

Fig. 1C–G, 1I

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BLA (basal amygdaloid nucleus) UBERON:0002887 projects to ACB (Nucleus accumbens) UBERON:0001882 · Rat

Iontophoretic injection of the retrograde tracer fluorogold into the accumbens shell of rats produced retrogradely labelled cell bodies distributed throughout the basolateral amygdala one to two weeks later, showing that this amygdala region sends axons to the accumbens shell.

Fig. 1A,B; Results, 'Recording of BLA-to-NAc shell excitatory synapses'

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CEA (central amygdaloid nucleus) UBERON:0002883 functionally connects to ACB (Nucleus accumbens) UBERON:0001882 · Rat

Because viral injection could spill into the adjacent central amygdala, the authors tested whether GABAergic input contributed to the light-evoked accumbens responses; picrotoxin reduced the responses only marginally (about 7% in 22 cells from 4 rats), which they took as evidence against a functional contribution of central amygdala fibres, though the connection itself was not directly assayed.

Results, 'Recording of BLA-to-NAc shell excitatory synapses'

Made by an AI model reading the paper (claude-opus-5, extract@0.3.0); a second AI model (claude-opus-5) is unsure. “The picrotoxin test only shows negligible GABAergic contribution and the no-CeA-projection statement is cited from prior work, so whether 'ambiguous' is the paper's own result is unclear.”

BLA (basal amygdaloid nucleus) UBERON:0002887 functionally connects to ACB (Nucleus accumbens) UBERON:0001882 · Rat

Brief blue-light pulses applied to ChR2-expressing amygdala fibres in accumbens shell slices evoked postsynaptic currents in accumbens neurons that were abolished by the AMPA-receptor blocker NBQX, and the responses had very short, fixed latencies with no later secondary events, indicating a direct glutamatergic monosynaptic input. The same light-evoked synapses were used throughout for minimal-stimulation, rectification, Naspm and LTD experiments.

Fig. 1H–L; Fig. 2E–M; Fig. 3; Fig. 5; Fig. 6

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