1. Academic Validation
  2. Tactile modulation of memory and anxiety requires dentate granule cells along the dorsoventral axis

Tactile modulation of memory and anxiety requires dentate granule cells along the dorsoventral axis

  • Nat Commun. 2020 Nov 27;11(1):6045. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19874-8.
Chi Wang 1 2 Hui Liu 1 2 Kun Li 1 Zhen-Zhen Wu 1 Chen Wu 1 2 Jing-Ying Yu 1 Qian Gong 1 Ping Fang 1 Xing-Xing Wang 3 Shu-Min Duan 2 Hao Wang 2 Yan Gu 4 Ji Hu 5 Bing-Xing Pan 6 Mathias V Schmidt 7 Yi-Jun Liu 1 Xiao-Dong Wang 8 9
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Neurobiology and Department of Psychiatry of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 310058, Hangzhou, China.
  • 2 NHC and CAMS Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontier Science Center for Brain Research and Brain-Machine Integration, School of Brain Science and Brain Medicine, Zhejiang University, 310058, Hangzhou, China.
  • 3 Department of Anesthesiology, Technische Universität München/Klinikum Rechts der Isar, 81675, Munich, Germany.
  • 4 Center of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, and Department of Neurology of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 310058, Hangzhou, China.
  • 5 School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, 201210, Shanghai, China.
  • 6 Laboratory of Fear and Anxiety Disorders, Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University, 330031, Nanchang, China.
  • 7 Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, 80804, Munich, Germany.
  • 8 Department of Neurobiology and Department of Psychiatry of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 310058, Hangzhou, China. [email protected].
  • 9 NHC and CAMS Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontier Science Center for Brain Research and Brain-Machine Integration, School of Brain Science and Brain Medicine, Zhejiang University, 310058, Hangzhou, China. [email protected].
Abstract

Touch can positively influence cognition and emotion, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we report that tactile experience enrichment improves memory and alleviates anxiety by remodeling neurons along the dorsoventral axis of the dentate gyrus (DG) in adult mice. Tactile enrichment induces differential activation and structural modification of neurons in the dorsal and ventral DG, and increases the presynaptic input from the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC), which is reciprocally connected with the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), to tactile experience-activated DG neurons. Chemogenetic activation of tactile experience-tagged dorsal and ventral DG neurons enhances memory and reduces anxiety respectively, whereas inactivation of these neurons or S1-innervated LEC neurons abolishes the beneficial effects of tactile enrichment. Moreover, adulthood tactile enrichment attenuates early-life stress-induced memory deficits and anxiety-related behavior. Our findings demonstrate that enriched tactile experience retunes the pathway from S1 to DG and enhances DG neuronal plasticity to modulate cognition and emotion.

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