Stressful experiences can lead to adaptive or detrimental behaviors. Understanding how stress can affect our brains can help understand basic brain function and is also essential to discerning causes and treatments for some diseases. A group of researchers led by Jeffrey Conn, professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt, explored how specific types of neurons within the prefrontal cortex, the brain area involved in decision-making, mood, and motivation, responded to acute stress in models. They found that one type of inhibitory neuron was persistently activated after acute stress, and this research implicated a receptor that has been targeted by the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (WCNDD) for drug development.
