Stress can drive adaptive changes to maintain survival during threatening stimuli. Chronic stress exposure, however, may result in pathological adaptations. A key neurotransmitter involved in stress signaling is norepinephrine. Previous studies show that acute stress elevates norepinephrine levels in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), a critical node regulating anxiety and upstream of stress responses. Here, we use mice expressing channelrhodopsin in norepinephrine neurons to selectively activate terminals in the BNST, and measure norepinephrine release with optogenetics-assisted fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV). We demonstrate that while corticosterone habituates to chronic restraint stress, cFos activation of medullary norepinephrine neurons shows equivalent activation under both acute and chronic stress conditions. Mice exposed to a single restraint session show an identical optically stimulated norepinephrine release profile compared to that of unexposed mice. Mice experiencing 5 days of restraint stress, however, show elevated norepinephrine release across multiple stimulation parameters, and reduced sensitivity to the α2-adrenergic receptor (AR) antagonist idazoxan. These data are the first to examine norepinephrine release in the BNST to tonic and phasic stimulation frequencies, and confirm that repeated stress alters autoreceptor sensitivity.
Keywords: Stress; bed nucleus of the stria terminalis; corticosterone; fast-scan cyclic voltammetry; norepinephrine; optogenetics.