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Journal article
Overshadowed by the amygdala: the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis emerges as key to psychiatric disorders.
Molecular Psychiatry, Vol.21(4), pp.450-463
16/Feb/2016
Abstract
The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is a center of integration for limbic information and valence monitoring. The BNST, sometimes referred to as the extended amygdala, is located in the basal forebrain and is a sexually dimorphic structure made up of between 12 and 18 sub-nuclei. These sub-nuclei are rich with distinct neuronal subpopulations of receptors, neurotransmitters, transporters and proteins. The BNST is important in a range of behaviors such as: the stress response, extended duration fear states and social behavior, all crucial determinants of dysfunction in human psychiatric diseases. Most research on stress and psychiatric diseases has focused on the amygdala, which regulates immediate responses to fear. However, the BNST, and not the amygdala, is the center of the psychogenic circuit from the hippocampus to the paraventricular nucleus. This circuit is important in the stimulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Thus, the BNST has been largely overlooked with respect to its possible dysregulation in mood and anxiety disorders, social dysfunction and psychological trauma, all of which have clear gender disparities. In this review, we will look in-depth at the anatomy and projections of the BNST, and provide an overview of the current literature on the relevance of BNST dysregulation in psychiatric diseases.
Details
- Title
- Overshadowed by the amygdala; the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis emerges as key to psychiatric disorders.
- Creators
- M. A. Lebow (null) - 972WIS_INST___123Alon Chen (null) - 972WIS_INST___123
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Molecular Psychiatry, Vol.21(4), pp.450-463
- Number of pages
- 14
- Language
- English
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2016.1
- Grant note
- This work was supported by European Research Council FP7 Grant 260463, Israel Science Foundation Research Grants 803/11 and 1565/15, Roberto and Renata Ruhman, Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases, the Henry Chanoch Krenter Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Genomics, the Perlman Family Foundation (founded by Louis L. and Anita M. Perlman), the Adelis Foundation, the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation, I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee, and Israel Science Foundation Grant 1916/12. Alon Chen is a director of the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry and head of the Max Planck - Weizmann Laboratory for Experimental Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurogenetics. We thank Dr. Jessica Keverne for English editing, formatting, and scientific input. We would like to give a special thanks to all those who read and re-read versions of the manuscript through the years and commented and brainstormed on each version: Dr Yair Shemesh, Dr Orit Furman and Dr Yair Ben-Efraim. A special thanks also to Sergey Anpilov for the generation of the heatmap of BNST subregions
- Record Identifier
- 993264490003596
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