Chronic CRH depletion from GABAergic, long-range projection neurons in the extended amygdala reduces dopamine release and increases anxiety.

The interplay between corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and the dopaminergic system has predominantly been studied in addiction and reward, while CRH-dopamine interactions in anxiety are scarcely understood. We describe a new population of CRH-expressing, GABAergic, long-range-projecting neurons in the extended amygdala that innervate the ventral tegmental area and alter anxiety following chronic CRH depletion. These neurons are part of a distinct CRH circuit that acts anxiolytically by positively modulating dopamine release

14-3-3 zeta deficient mice in the BALB/c background display behavioural and anatomical defects associated with neurodevelopmental disorders

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. Sequencing and expression analyses implicate 14-3-3? as a genetic risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism. In support of this notion, we recently found that 14-3-3?<sup>-/-</sup> mice in the Sv/129 background display schizophrenia-like defects. As epistatic interactions play a significant role in disease pathogenesis we generated a new congenic strain in the BALB/c background to determine the impact of genetic interactions on the 14-3-3?<sup>-/-</sup> phenotype. In addition to replicating defects such as aberrant mossy fibre connectivity and impaired spatial memory, our analysis of 14-3-3?<sup>-/-</sup> BALB/c mice identified enlarged lateral ventricles, reduced synaptic density and ectopically positioned pyramidal neurons in all subfields of the hippocampus. In contrast to our previous analyses, 14-3-3?<sup>-/-</sup> BALB/c mice lacked locomotor hyperactivity that was underscored by normal levels of the dopamine transporter (DAT) and dopamine signalling. Taken together, our results demonstrate that dysfunction of 14-3-3? gives rise to many of the pathological hallmarks associated with the human condition. 14-3-3? -deficient BALB/c mice therefore provide a novel model to address the underlying biology of structural defects affecting the hippocampus and ventricle, and cognitive defects such as hippocampal-dependent learning and memory