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. 2019 Jun 3;9(6):129. doi: 10.3390/brainsci9060129

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Examples of the relationship between cardiovascular and endocrine responsivity and area 25/infralimbic (IL) activity in emotional and non-emotional conditions in human, macaque, marmoset and rat. (A) In humans, (i) stimulation of area 25 via deep brain stimulation (red circles indicate stimulation loci) causes a brief hypertension followed by pronounced hypotension in anesthetized humans [34] while (ii) the administration of peripheral cortisol decreases area 25 activation to sad stimuli (brain region shaded blue) in the absence of any stressors [36]. (B) In macaques (i) stimulation of area 25 in anesthetized animals caused a brief hypertension followed by pronounced hypotension [22], similar to humans, and (ii) cortisol release correlates with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activity during neutral conditions (large demarcated area), and specifically with area 25 during both stressful and neutral conditions (small demarcated area; [37]). (C) In marmosets, pharmacological inactivation of area 25 with GABA A and B agonists (muscimol and baclofen; ‘musbac’) in a neutral condition caused a reduction in heart rate (HR) and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) that was accompanied by an increase in heart rate variability (HRV). Subdivision of the cardiac vagal and cardiac sympathetic indices (CVI and CSI) revealed that this HRV change was caused by a selective increase in the parasympathetic CVI [38]. (D) In rats (i) inactivation of IL had no effect on HR and MAP [39], unlike humans and non-human primates, but (ii) selective glucocorticoid receptor (GCR) silencing within the IL reduced activity within the open field test indicating that cortisol can modulate IL’s impact on emotional behavior [40]. Thus, whereas manipulation of area 25 in a neutral setting consistently modulates cardiovascular function in humans and non-human primates, such changes are not apparent after IL manipulation in the rat. However, glucocorticoids appear to modulate negative emotion in both area 25 and IL indicating similarities in some functional domains, but not others.