Inhibition of prefrontal cortex parvalbumin interneurons mitigates behavioral and physiological sequelae of chronic stress in male mice

Chronic stress leads to hypofunction of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), mechanisms of which remain to be determined. Enhanced activation of GABAergic of parvalbumin (PV) expressing interneurons (INs) is thought to play a role in stress-induced prefrontal inhibition. In this study, we tested whether chemogenetic inhibition of mPFC PV INs after chronic stress can rescue chronic stress-related behavioral and physiological phenotypes. Mice underwent 2 weeks of chronic variable stress (CVS) followed by a battery of behavioral tests known to be affected by chronic stress exposure, e.g. an open field (OF), novel object recognition (NOR), tail suspension test (TST), sucrose preference test (SPT), and light dark (LD) box. Inhibitory DREADDs were actuated by 3 mg/kg CNO administered 30 min prior to each behavioral test. CVS caused hyperactivity in the OF, reduced sucrose preference in the SPT (indicative of enhanced anhedonia), and increased anxiety-like behavior in the LD box. Inhibition of PV IN after stress mitigated these effects. In addition, CVS also resulted in reduced thymus weight and body weight loss, which were also mitigated by PV IN inhibition. Our results indicate that chronic stress leads to plastic changes in PV INs that may be mitigated by chemogenetic inhibition. Our findings implicate cortical GABAergic INs as a therapeutic target in stress-related diseases.