Fig. 4.

Increased CRH levels and greater glutamatergic output (more vGlut2 positive boutons) onto CRH-expressing neurons in the PVN of rats that experienced early-life stress as compared to controls. Merged confocal microscope images of sections at the level of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) double labeled for CRH (green) and vGlut2 (red) in P22–P28 animals exposed to chronic early-life stress as compared with controls. B. Quantification of fluorescence intensity of vGlut2 in the PVN reveals a 60% increase in vGlut2 expression in early-life stressed animals (1.53 ± 0.08) relative to controls (2.44 ± 0.09). Scale bars, 100 μm. Adapted from Gunn et al. (2013) with permission. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)