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In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Responses of the insular cortex IC and amygdala to stimuli of positive and negative valence are altered in patients with anxiety disorders.
However, neural coding of both anxiety and valence by IC neurons remains unknown. Using fiber photometry recordings in mice, we uncover a selective increase of activity in IC projection neurons of the anterior aIC , but not posterior pIC section, when animals are exploring anxiogenic spaces, and this activity is proportional to the level of anxiety of mice. Neurons in aIC also respond to stimuli of positive and negative valence, and the strength of response to strong negative stimuli is proportional to mice levels of anxiety.
Using ex vivo electrophysiology, we characterized the IC connection to the basolateral amygdala BLA , and employed projection-specific optogenetics to reveal anxiogenic properties of aIC-BLA neurons. Finally, we identified that aIC-BLA neurons are activated in anxiogenic spaces, as well as in response to aversive stimuli, and that both activities are positively correlated. Altogether, we identified a common neurobiological substrate linking negative valence with anxiety-related information and behaviors, which provides a starting point to understand how alterations of these neural populations contribute to psychiatric disorders.
Anxiety is defined as the anticipation of a future threat, with an uncertain probability of occurrence 1 , 2 , 3. Importantly, anxiety is a physiological and adaptive state, evolutionarily relevant, since it allows organisms to prevent exposure to harmful situations. Anxiety becomes pathological when avoidance behaviors and fear are sustained and disruptive despite the absence of danger or potential danger 1 , 4. Clinical studies demonstrated that patients with anxiety disorders have altered attribution of emotional valence, as they exhibited an attentional bias for stimuli of negative valence, as well as an increase in negative interpretations of ambiguous sentences and scenarios compared to healthy controls 5 , 6 , 7.
