Beijing Normal University team: nucleus accumbens and dorsal caudate differ in stress response

Researchers from Beijing Normal University, Southwest University and partner institutions in China reported that two striatal subregions play dissociable roles in stress responses. The paper by Weiyu Hu, Shaozheng Qin and colleagues was published in Nature Communications on 5 November 2026. The subregions are the nucleus accumbens (NAC) and the dorsal caudate (dCA), together with their associated brain networks doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗.

According to the authors, effective stress coping relies on coordination between neural and endocrine systems, with the mesostriatal system as a central substrate. How individual striatal subregions contribute to stress vulnerability versus resilience had remained unclear doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗.

Neural stability as a marker

The authors identified a marker called neural stability (NS). It captures stress-induced changes in the frequency of state switching over the course of the stress response doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗.

Task-state NS correlated positively with stress-related NAC activity. Resting-state NS, by contrast, correlated inversely with stress-related dCA activity doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗. The two subregions are therefore associated with different patterns of neural dynamics.

NAC-mediated networks and the associated NS also predicted faster cortisol recovery, according to the authors doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗. This links a neural measure to an endocrine one within the same stress response.

Receptor and gene-expression links

The study also compared functional connectivity patterns with molecular maps. NAC-related connectivity patterns covaried spatially with the distribution of dopamine D2 receptors and with gene expression in inhibitory neurons and glia doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗.

dCA-related patterns covaried with the distribution of μ-opioid receptors doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗. The two subregions thus map onto different molecular systems.

The authors conclude that the results reveal heterogeneity among striatal subregions in stress coping. They describe resilience as a multisystem homeostatic process that integrates neural, endocrine and molecular layers doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗.

The reported relationships are correlations and spatial covariations between neural activity, hormone recovery and receptor or gene-expression maps. The corresponding authors are Juan Yang and Shaozheng Qin doi.orgNature Communicationsdoi.orgOpen source ↗.