Dysfunction Of Inhibitory Circuit In Amygdala Distribute To Anxiety-like Behavior

Anxiety is an emotional disorder which causes economic losses and negative effects on people's life. Lots of studies focused on the amygdala nuclei because it is an important part of emotional neural circuit. The relationship of anxiety and amygdala is always an emphasis. We believe the abnormal amygdala distribute to anxiety. Therefore, we examine the amygdala local circuit and found it was more calm down in the DBA strain mice which have genetic anxiety background than control ones, also the coordination among cells of anxious amygdala was better. Then we used whole cell recording to record the intrinsic properties and spontaneous postsynaptic current. It is interesting that the activity of inhibitory cells were higher in anxious amygdala than the control, not the principle neurons. It is suggested that the local circuit of anxious amygdala is dysfunctional by the overexciting inhibitory neurons. The balance of excitability to inhibitory (E/I) is broken by dysfunction of inhibitory network in amygdala.