Ricerc@Sapienza

Exposure to highly stressful life-threatening events that elicit an intense response of fear and helplessness causes in some individuals an enduring reaction known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although PTSD is one of the few mental disorders whose triggering cause is known, we have a very limited knowledge of the biological mechanisms underlying its development, and what differentiates resilient and susceptible individuals. As a result, no clearly effective pharmacological treatment, nor preventive strategy, or reliable biological markers are currently available. Increasing evidence links the cerebellum to depression e PTSD. Recently, structural and functional alterations have been reported in the cerebellum of PTSD patients. This structure is well known for its role in the control of movements and motor learning, but it is often overlooked by the literature on the neural basis of stress response.
The main objective of this project is to investigate cerebellar contribution to traumatic stress response by analyzing long-term molecular, structural and functional changes in the cerebellum of stress-resilient and stress susceptible individuals, in a preclinical model of PTSD. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we propose 1) To determine whether exposure to a traumatic stress induces long-lasting alterations in stress response pathways and gene expression in the cerebellum; 2) To study stress-induced morphological and functional remodeling of cerebellar neural circuits, including expression of synaptic cell-adhesion proteins.