🚨📃New Wassum Lab Paper📃🚨. @Jackie_Gio discovered brain pathways that support agency and habit and how chronic stress disrupts them to rob of us our agency and cause us to form rigid habits 🧵👇. Free full text:

RT @Nature: Scientists have found two ‘dials’ in the brain that help to explain how chronic stress hijacks decision-making. .

This discovery would not have been possible without the support of NIH grants. NIH funding is absolutely vital to the scientific discovery that builds the foundation of knowledge and truth that helps us understand ourselves and improve health and wellbeing for all.

And a huge thanks to the editors and reviewers who gave us their time and energy to help with this science. You made this story better.

This was a team effort, we couldn't have done this without the dedication, creativity, ingenuity, and perseverance of the whole team of folks in our lab and our collaborators. @MeghaSehgal_ @MelissaMalvaez @alcinojsilva @Ramirez_KathiaI @Avi_UCLA @natpared and twitterless others

The data reveal a dual-pathway 🧠 architecture through which chronic stress disrupts agency and promotes the formation of rigid habits. We're excited to further explore how we can intervene following stress to restore agency and break bad habits.

We were able to restore adaptive decision making following chronic stress by reengaging the BLA➡️DMS pathway or dialing down the CeA➡️DMS pathway

Chronic stress disrupts agency by turning off the BLA➡️DMS pathway needed for the action-outcome learning that supports adaptive decision making. Instead, it turns on the CeA➡️DMS habit pathway to promote formation of the rigid, inflexible habits that cause maladaptive choices.

The CeA➡️DMS pathway, on the other hand, supports the formation of routine habits.

First, we discovered that when you experience a rewarding event this activates the BLA➡️DMS pathway enabling you to link that reward to the action that earned it, forming the action-outcome knowledge that supports your agency to make thoughtful, adaptive decisions.

We showed that both the basolateral (BLA) and central (CeA) subdivisions of the amygdala send direct projections to the dorsomedial striatum (DMS). These pathways are opposing- the BLA➡️DMS pathway is excitatory and the CeA➡️DMS pathway is likely inhibitory.

And the dorsomedial striatum is the 🧠 hub for the action-outcome learning that supports our agency to engage in thoughtful, flexible decision making

This made sense to me. The amygdala is a 🧠 center for emotional learning. It is also highly responsive to stress.

On the crowded poster floor of SfN 2019, @jackiegio.bsky.social pitched me the idea that stress might disrupt learning via amygdala projections to the striatum

So, we wanted to understand how chronic stress acts on the 🧠 to shape how we learn and, thus, how we decide. We started this project right before the COVID-19 pandemic. The stress of that experience amplified the significance of this question for us.

When we're stressed, we may not see our agency. We may struggle to make thoughtful decisions. Instead, stress can cause us to fall into habits. This rigid form of decision making can cause us to make choices that aren't beneficial. Many of us may be feeling this right now.

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