Abstract
Ultrasound stimulation is an emerging noninvasive option in treating neuropsychiatric disorders. The present study investigates the behavioral alterations resulting from ultrasound stimulation on the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in freely moving mice. Our results show that an acute ultrasound stimulation on the NAc, rather than the visual cortex or auditory cortex, led to a pronounced avoidance behavior, while repeated NAc ultrasound stimulation resulted in an obvious conditioned place aversion with changes in synaptic protein (GluA1/2 subunit) expression. Notably, NAc ultrasound stimulation suppressed the morphine-induced conditioned place preference. The results provide evidence that NAc ultrasound stimulation can be applied as a potential noninvasive therapeutic option in treating psychiatric disorders.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Yan Dong for helps in proofreading the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81527901, 81822017, 11534013, 11774371, 31771215), Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2018393). TY is also sponsored by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (18QA1403700, 18JC1420304, 18140901700) and Shanghai Clinical Research Center for Mental Health (19MC1911100).
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AAG received financial supports from Alkermes, Roche, Takeda, which are irrelevant to the present study. The author(s) declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Niu, L., Guo, Y., Lin, Z. et al. Noninvasive ultrasound deep brain stimulation of nucleus accumbens induces behavioral avoidance. Sci. China Life Sci. 63, 1328–1336 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-019-1616-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-019-1616-6