Download Characterization of the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis

Characterization of the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis in Transgenic Mouse Lines
Sonam Malhotra
Mentor: Xiangmin Xu
The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is part of the extended amygdala which receives heavy
projections from the basolateral amygdala and other areas, and projects to hypothalamic and brainstem target
areas that mediate autonomic and behavioral responses to aversive or threatening stimuli. Thus, the BNST
may have a crucial role in chronic stress response and regulation. Characterization of the BNST may give us a
better understanding of the causes and effects of posttraumatic stressdisorder. As previous studies have not
effectively characterized mouse BNST, we have used new transgenic mouse lines expressing specific chemical
markers to characterize excitatory and inhibitory neuronal types in BNST. Specifically, I used the transgenic
mice expressing fluorescent proteins in excitatory and inhibitory neurons to aid characterization of the BNST.
I found that a great majority of BNST neurons are GABAergic inhibitory neurons as almost 73% of the
BNST neurons are comprised of GAD67+ neurons. In comparison, excitatory BNST neurons are a minority
as approximately 11.49% of the BNST neurons are comprised of CamKIIα+ neurons, less than 1% of the
BNST neurons are composed of VGLUT2+ neurons. Together, this work provides new information on
mouse BNST neuronal components, and helps to understand future studies with sub-types of the inhibitory
and excitatory neurons in the brain region.