Publications by Olivia Zanoletti

Corticotropin-releasing hormone modulates NREM sleep consolidation through the thalamic reticular nucleus

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Olivia Zanoletti, Simone Astori

Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) is a peptide associated with stress and anxiety that acts as a potent modulator throughout the nervous system. The thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) displays high expression of the CRH receptor 1 (CRHR1), but whether CR ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2025

Mitochondrial control of ciliary gene expression and structure in striatal neurons

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Olivia Zanoletti, Dogukan Hazar Ülgen, Alessandro Chioino

Mitochondria play essential metabolic roles and are increasingly understood to interact with other organelles, influencing cellular function and disease. Primary cilia, as sensory and signalling organelles, are crucial for neuronal communication and functi ...

WILEY2025

Urolithin A abolishes high anxiety and rescues the associated mitochondria-related transcriptomic signatures and synaptic function

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Davide D'Amico, Simone Astori, Marie-Isabelle Guillot de Suduiraut, Dogukan Hazar Ülgen

Background: Chronic anxiety is common, disabling, and often refractory to current therapies. Mounting evidence implicates mitochondrial abnormalities in anxiety-related phenotypes. Urolithin A (UA), a gut microbiota-derived metabolite known to enhance mito ...

Elsevier BV2025

Diurnal cortisol profiles in autistic adolescents and young adults: Associations with social difficulties and internalizing mental health symptoms

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Olivia Zanoletti

Several autism-related characteristics, such as social difficulties, may contribute to high perceived stress and increased exposure to stressful life events in some autistic individuals. Repeated exposure to stress might lead to the dysfunction of the hypo ...

2024

Mitofusin-2 in nucleus accumbens D2-MSNs regulates social dominance and neuronal function

Bernard Schneider, Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Elias Georges Gebara, Marie-Isabelle Guillot de Suduiraut, Simone Astori, Alessandro Chioino, Sriparna Ghosal, Eva Ramos Fernandez

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a brain hub regulating motivated behaviors, including social competitiveness. Mitochondrial function in the NAc links anxiety with social competitiveness, and the mitochondrial fusion protein mitofusin 2 (Mfn2) in NAc neurons ...

2023

Blunted Glucocorticoid Responsiveness to Stress Causes Behavioral and Biological Alterations That Lead to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Vulnerability

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Simone Astori, Marie-Isabelle Guillot de Suduiraut, Sophie Elizabeth Walker, Silvia Monari

Background: Understanding why only a subset of trauma-exposed individuals develop posttraumatic stress disorder is critical for advancing clinical strategies. A few behavioral (deficits in fear extinction) and biological (blunted glucocorticoid levels, sma ...

2023

Glutathione in the nucleus accumbens regulates motivation to exert reward-incentivized effort

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Lijing Xin, Ioannis Zalachoras, Olivia Zanoletti, Simone Astori, João Pedro de Matos Rodrigues, Fiona Hollis, Pascal Steiner, Alina Veronika Irene Strasser, Eva Ramos Fernandez

Emerging evidence is implicating mitochondrial function and metabolism in the nucleus accumbens in motivated performance. However, the brain is vulnerable to excessive oxidative insults resulting from neurometabolic processes, and whether antioxidant level ...

2022

Deletion of Crtc1 leads to hippocampal neuroenergetic impairments associated with depressive-like behavior

Rolf Gruetter, Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Bernard Lanz, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Carole Poitry-Yamate, Antoine Timothée Cherix

Mood disorders (MD) are a major burden on society as their biology remains poorly understood, challenging both diagnosis and therapy. Among many observed biological dysfunctions, homeostatic dysregulation, such as metabolic syndrome (MeS), shows considerab ...

SPRINGERNATURE2022

Exploring associations between diurnal cortisol, stress, coping and psychopathology in adolescents and young adults with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Olivia Zanoletti, Maude Schneider, Farnaz Delavari

Background: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is a neurogenetic condition associated to a high risk for psychiatric disorders, including psychosis. Individuals with 22q11DS are thought to experience increased levels of chronic stress, which could lead to ...

2022

Opposite effects of stress on effortful motivation in high and low anxiety are mediated by CRHR1 in the VTA

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Simone Astori, Marie-Isabelle Guillot de Suduiraut, Ioannis Zalachoras, Mandy Meijer

Individuals frequently differ in their behavioral and cognitive responses to stress. However, whether motivation is differently affected by acute stress in different individuals remains to be established. By exploiting natural variation in trait anxiety in ...

2022