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. 2024 Jan;35(1):1-3.
doi: 10.1016/j.tem.2023.09.008. Epub 2023 Oct 5.

Brain mitochondria in behavior: more than a powerhouse

Affiliations

Brain mitochondria in behavior: more than a powerhouse

Alexia Crockett et al. Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2024 Jan.

Abstract

Rosenberg and colleagues developed a miniaturized assay of mitochondrial content and energy transformation capacity that allowed them to assess mitochondrial features and activities across the brain in male mice. Their findings provide a comprehensive brain-wide map of mitochondrial associations with stress-induced behaviors and highlight mitochondria as dynamic, spatially-organized organelles.

Keywords: behavior; brain bioenergetics; mitochondria; stress.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests No interests are declared.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Experimental overview with open questions.
Animals were divided into four groups; naïve, corticosterone treatment (CORT), chronic social defeat stress (CSDS), CSDS + recovery. Following exposure, animals were selectively placed in behavioral tests of anxiety-like behavior (open field (OF); elevated plus maze (EPM)), approach-avoidance (social interaction (SI)), and hyponeophagia (novelty suppressed feeding (NSF)). Brain regions were selected based on associations with anxiety-related, social, cognitive, and mitochondrial disorders to be compared with previous behavioral results. Tissue samples were analyzed via spectrophotometry to assess enzymatic activity of respiratory chain (RC) complexes I, II, and IV, citrate synthase, mitochondrial density, and DNA copy number. Multi-slice community detection analysis showed three distinct networks of brain regions defined as 1) cortico-striatal network; 2) salience and spatial navigation network; and 3) threat response network which correlated with the observed behavioral outputs. Further studies are needed to examine the effects of stress at different developmental time points, in female brain mitochondria, in different species, and to understand the mechanisms by which mitochondrial networks modulate behavior. Finally, establishing whether similar mitochondrial networks are present in the human brain will facilitate future translational studies linking mitochondrial networks to behavior. This figure was created using BioRender (https://biorender.com/).

References

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