The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review

Anxiety is one of the most common psychiatric disorders diagnosed in the United States today. Like all mental illnesses, anxiety pathology includes genetic, molecular, somatic, and behavioral characteristics. Specific brain regions implicated in anxiety include the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippo...

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Autores principales: Persaud, Nikita S., Cates, Hannah M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Society for Neuroscience 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10131535/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35998298
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0109-21.2021
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author Persaud, Nikita S.
Cates, Hannah M.
author_facet Persaud, Nikita S.
Cates, Hannah M.
author_sort Persaud, Nikita S.
collection PubMed
description Anxiety is one of the most common psychiatric disorders diagnosed in the United States today. Like all mental illnesses, anxiety pathology includes genetic, molecular, somatic, and behavioral characteristics. Specific brain regions implicated in anxiety include the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. Together, these regions regulate fear-related learning and memory processes, and are innervated by neuronal projections that use glutamate and GABA as neurotransmitters. Neurotrophic factors such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) are also implicated in anxiety. This review discusses the neuroepigenetics of the anxiety phenotype. While studying such changes is limited to postmortem brain studies or peripheral tissue acquisition in humans, the use of animals to model anxiety phenotypes has made epigenetic research possible. In this review, we summarize and discuss a plethora of DNA methylation, histone modification, and associated gene expression differences underscoring the anxiety phenotype. The findings we outline include expression changes of various DNA methyltransferases and changes in histone modifications that affect the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and stress response as well as GABA, glutamate, and BDNF signaling in the PFC, amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus. Furthermore, there have been studies showing that anxiety behaviors and biological scars from stress can be reversed using histone deacetylase inhibitors, and we discuss ideas for the future of treatment. In this review, we hope that by compiling much of the data pertaining to DNA methylation and histone modifications in vivo animal studies we are able to highlight potential avenues for future research despite existing limitations.
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spelling pubmed-101315352023-04-27 The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review Persaud, Nikita S. Cates, Hannah M. eNeuro Review Anxiety is one of the most common psychiatric disorders diagnosed in the United States today. Like all mental illnesses, anxiety pathology includes genetic, molecular, somatic, and behavioral characteristics. Specific brain regions implicated in anxiety include the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. Together, these regions regulate fear-related learning and memory processes, and are innervated by neuronal projections that use glutamate and GABA as neurotransmitters. Neurotrophic factors such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) are also implicated in anxiety. This review discusses the neuroepigenetics of the anxiety phenotype. While studying such changes is limited to postmortem brain studies or peripheral tissue acquisition in humans, the use of animals to model anxiety phenotypes has made epigenetic research possible. In this review, we summarize and discuss a plethora of DNA methylation, histone modification, and associated gene expression differences underscoring the anxiety phenotype. The findings we outline include expression changes of various DNA methyltransferases and changes in histone modifications that affect the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and stress response as well as GABA, glutamate, and BDNF signaling in the PFC, amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus. Furthermore, there have been studies showing that anxiety behaviors and biological scars from stress can be reversed using histone deacetylase inhibitors, and we discuss ideas for the future of treatment. In this review, we hope that by compiling much of the data pertaining to DNA methylation and histone modifications in vivo animal studies we are able to highlight potential avenues for future research despite existing limitations. Society for Neuroscience 2023-04-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10131535/ /pubmed/35998298 http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0109-21.2021 Text en Copyright © 2023 Persaud and Cates https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
spellingShingle Review
Persaud, Nikita S.
Cates, Hannah M.
The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review
title The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review
title_full The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review
title_fullStr The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review
title_full_unstemmed The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review
title_short The Epigenetics of Anxiety Pathophysiology: A DNA Methylation and Histone Modification Focused Review
title_sort epigenetics of anxiety pathophysiology: a dna methylation and histone modification focused review
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10131535/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35998298
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0109-21.2021
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