bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.08.11.744063

Astrocyte-expressed STAT3 regulates glutamate homeostasis and binge ethanol drinking in mice

Galan-Llario, M.·Chen, H.·Legge, E.·Erikson, C. M.·Vlkolinsky, R.·Almeida, J.·Bajo, M.·Roberto, M.·Lasek, A. W.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Astrocytes play an important role in neuronal health. A critical function of astrocytes is to clear excess extracellular glutamate and prevent excitotoxicity. STAT3 is a transcription factor that promotes astrocyte development and astrocyte reactivity in neurodegenerative diseases and following central nervous system injury. To determine the innate molecular and behavioral functions of adult astrocyte-expressed STAT3 in a non-pathological state, we created conditional Stat3 astrocyte knockout mice (Stat3 aKO) using Stat3flox and the tamoxifen-activated Cre line, Aldh1l1-Cre/ERT2. We measured transcript levels of Gfap, a known STAT3 target gene, and glutamate transporter genes in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) of Stat3 aKO. Gfap, Slc1a2 and Slc17a8 transcripts were decreased in the PFC of Stat3 aKO of both sexes. GLT-1 protein, encoded by Slc1a2, was also reduced in the PFC of male Stat3 aKO. We recorded spontaneous excitatory post-synaptic currents (sEPSCs) in male Stat3 aKO and control prelimbic pyramidal neurons and found increased sEPSC amplitude, consistent with a hyper-glutamatergic state due to impaired glutamate clearance. To determine the behavioral consequences of STAT3 depletion in astrocytes, Stat3 aKO were tested for locomotor activity, anxiety-like behavior and binge ethanol consumption, behaviors linked to dysregulation of glutamate homeostasis. Stat3 aKO mice did not differ in locomotor activity or anxiety-like behavior; however, male Stat3 aKO mice consumed significantly less ethanol than controls. These results indicate that STAT3 in adult astrocytes is crucial for maintaining glutamate transporter levels in the adult brain and that astrocytic STAT3 promotes ethanol consumption in male mice. Main pointsO_LIGfap, Slc1a2 and Slc17a8 expression are lower in the cortex of Stat3 astrocyte knockout mice (Stat3 aKO) C_LIO_LIGLT-1 protein is decreased and glutamate neurotransmission is elevated in the cortex of male Stat3 aKO C_LIO_LIMale Stat3 aKO consume less ethanol C_LI

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Galan-Llario, M., Chen, H., Legge, E., Erikson, C. M., Vlkolinsky, R., Almeida, J., Bajo, M., Roberto, M., Lasek, A. W.. 2026-08-20. Astrocyte-expressed STAT3 regulates glutamate homeostasis and binge ethanol drinking in mice. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.08.11.744063

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Same Movements, Different Skills: How Context Shapes Learning in Humans and Neural Networks

What determines whether experiences are integrated into shared representations or split? Motor skill learning offers a revealing test: when two tasks require an identical sequence of movements, both intuition and theory suggest that practice in one should generalize to the other. Yet we find that changing context can make identical movements different skills. In simple recurrent networks trained on the same sequence across contexts, splitting was greatest when strong contextual inputs coincided with a high initial weight scale; neither alone sufficed. Greater representational separation coincided with separate context-specific learning curves. Humans practicing the same finger sequence while alternating between two performance-irrelevant contexts likewise exhibited context-specific curves, rather than the single continuous trajectory observed when practicing in a single context. State-space modeling favored split learning states in humans and very weakly coupled states in the most context-dependent networks. These findings have broader implications for understanding how learning generalizes across contexts.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Postpartum resource scarcity reshapes maternal care, offspring prioritization, and the steroid-sensitive medial preoptic area

Parental care requires balancing offspring needs with environmental constraints, yet how resource scarcity alters the organization of maternal responses remains poorly understood. Here, we examined maternal behavior, offspring prioritization, and steroid receptor-associated extracellular matrix organization in postpartum rats exposed to limited bedding and nesting (LBN) or control conditions with ample nesting materials. LBN increased pup-directed and reduced self-directed behaviors but also increased behavioral entropy, a measure of behavioral fragmentation, indicating less predictable caregiving sequences. LBN dams preferentially retrieved male pups first, whereas control dams preferentially retrieved females first. LBN also increased the proportion of pup-investigation time directed toward males compared with controls. In offspring on postnatal day 10, corticosterone was elevated in female but not male LBN pups, a pattern that paralleled the maternal male bias. To identify associated neurobiological changes, we assessed steroid receptors and extracellular matrix organization in the medial preoptic area (mPOA), a key region for maternal behavior. LBN increased numbers of estrogen receptor (ER)- and androgen receptor (AR)-immunoreactive cells, reduced perineuronal net (PNN) abundance, and decreased receptor-positive cell enwrapment. Because PNNs constrain structural plasticity, these findings suggest that the postpartum environment alters the organization of steroid receptor-associated extracellular matrix, potentially modulating experience-dependent plasticity in neurosteroid-sensitive circuits. In sum, LBN increases the levels of maternal engagement while reshaping its temporal organization and allocation, accompanied by selective remodeling of steroid-sensitive preoptic architecture. Therefore, maternal adaptation to adversity may be better understood as changes in caregiving allocation strategies rather than a simple gain or loss of maternal care.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

The Computational Grammar of Human Behaviour in a Biological Environment

Human behaviour unfolds as an extended stream of spontaneous actions shaped by environmental demands and the agent's goals. The organisation of these actions, situated between setting abstract goals and concrete movement execution, remains poorly characterised. Here, we introduce DynaClade, an unsupervised temporal action segmentation algorithm for human full-body motion capture data, and apply it to freely moving participants navigating ecologically realistic risky foraging environments in virtual reality. DynaClade identifies discrete actions whose kinematic characteristics and spatial distributions correspond to environmental affordances, supporting the validity of the approach. Among these actions, we discovered a hitherto undescribed movement pattern defined by increased body sway without locomotion. Action sequences were highly non-random and showed clear history dependence beyond first-order Markov structure, most of which was explained by a second-order prediction. This higher-order structure was well captured in a hidden Markov model, in which some of the observed actions were associated with more than one latent state. Each of these latent states corresponded to the same action in a distinct action context. These findings suggest that spontaneous human actions are predominantly selected based on the current action and context, rather than following pre-planned or habitually assembled sequences.

neuroscience↗