Chronic Stress Causes Frontostriatal Reorganization and Affects Decision-Making

Abstract

Brain Rewiring After Stress Chronic stress, mainly through the release of corticosteroids, affects executive behavior through sequential structural modulation of brain networks. Stress-induced deficits in spatial reference, working memory, and behavioral flexibility are associated with synaptic and dendritic reorganization in both the hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex. However, the effects of chronic stress on action selection strategies are unclear. Dias-Ferreira et al. (p. 621 ) examined whether chronic stress affects the ability of animals to select the appropriate actions based on the consequences of their choice, and found that rats exposed to chronic unpredictable stress rapidly shift toward using habitual strategies. The shift in behavioral strategies observed in chronically stressed animals corresponded to dramatic and divergent changes in connectivity in the associative and sensorimotor corticostriatal circuits underlying these behaviors.