Scientific research team of Institute of Life Science of our university achieved important progress in the study of fear reaction neuromecha

Fear is the most basic emotional reaction to human beings and higher animals. The moderate fear reaction to the external dangerous things help to maintain the individual survival and specimen extension, but excessive fear reaction will seriously damage mental health; this excessive fear reaction is of the core symptoms to many patients with mental diseases.

　　Previous studies have demonstrated that, the brain amygdala plays a key role in regulating fear reactions, and the GABAa receptor at the site of amygdala synapse plays a vital role in effectively inhibiting the excessive expression of fear.

　　The scientific research team lead by Professor Pan Bingxing of Institute of Life Science of Nanchang University carried out a serial study on the expression pattern and the functiaonal characteristics of the GABAa receptor at the site of amygdala synapse in fear expression, and found that, the activation of such receptors significantly enhanced the fear expression and caused excessive fear reactions. This finding was of important theoretical significance to the understanding of nervous mechanism of amygdala regulating fear reactions, which provides a potential drug intervention target for the effective remission of mental disease patients. The research paper was published on a famous international journal in psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry(http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2016.06.022), and doctoral degree candidate Liu Zhipeng was the joint first author of the paper, and Professor Pan Bingxing was the corresponding author. Professor Pan Bingxing is an independent research fellow employed from overseas a full-time employee in Nanchang University.

This research was completed through the cooperation between Institute of Life Science of Nanchang University and School of Basic Medical Science of Southern Medical University, and the core part was completed by Nanchang University.

• Source : Nanchang University
• Date : 2017-09-13