阿尔茨海默病（Alzheimer's disease，简称AD）发病早期表现的异常精神症状可能是控制脑内情绪的神经环路的结构和功能失常所造成的，尤其是与调节情绪和记忆的中心枢纽杏仁核—海马神经环路的损伤直接相关。但是，其作用机制和对AD发病过程中记忆环路功能整合的影响仍不明确。本项目围绕调控AD早期精神症状的神经环路机制这一核心问题，以海马-杏仁核-室旁核核团间联系为研究的切入点，结合行为学，形态学和核团间环路功能联系分析等实验手段，研究AD病理条件下记忆神经环路的结构和认知功能变化，明确该环路对AD的行为精神症状的调控机制以及与学习记忆的关系。本研究将有助于深入理解AD发病早期行为精神症状和认知环路整合机制，并带来新的治疗靶点。

The abnormal psychological symptoms exhibited during the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may be attributable to abberant neural circuits for behavior and emotion, in particular, impairment in amygdala-hippocampus circuits, center for emotion and memory. However, the mechanism underlying the abnormalities and their effects on integration of memory circuits during AD remains elusive. Our proposed studies will focus on the mechanism of neural circuits mediated psychological symptoms of AD, combined with behavior, morphology and functional connectivity analysis of the neural circuits to clarify structural and functional changes in the circuits of amygdala in AD, and to reveal the mechanisms of the circuits in regulating behavioral and psychological disorders. Our studies should lead to an increased understanding of the mechanisms for early psychological symptoms and integration of cognitive circuits, which helps bring a novel potential therapeutic target for treatment of AD.