ePoster

Hypothalamic circuits regulating home-driven affective behaviors

Xiaoya Su, Bo Lei, Junyue He, Ao Wang, Yi Zhong
FENS Forum 2024(2024)
Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Conference

FENS Forum 2024

Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Resources

Authors & Affiliations

Xiaoya Su, Bo Lei, Junyue He, Ao Wang, Yi Zhong

Abstract

Home drives various emotionally charged behaviors, such as relaxation and territorial defense. However, how ‘home’ information is organized in the brain to drive the diverse even conflict-affective behaviors remains elusive. Here we found that home bedding carried sufficient home information as it could relieve aversion in fear or anxiety contexts, trigger defensive behaviors towards intruders, and promote mating behaviors in mice. Representations of such home information in diversified behavioral contexts were all mapped to the lateral hypothalamus GABAergic neurons (LHGABA). Inhibiting LHGABA could abolish while activating this group of neurons could mimic the effects of home bedding in different contexts. Specifically, the projection from LHGABA to the VTA mediated relaxation, while to the PAG initiated defensive concerns. Thus, the results suggest that home information in different contexts might all converge to activate distinct subgroups of the LHGABA, which in turn trigger appropriate affective behaviors in relieving fear, fighting against intruders, or promoting mating behaviors through distinct downstream projections.

Unique ID: fens-24/hypothalamic-circuits-regulating-home-driven-8ca3268a