Topic: defensive behavior

Among symptoms characterizing Parkinson’s disease (PD), freezing of gait (FoG) can become particularly disabling for patients. Anxiety levels have been linked to the severity of FoG, yet in this circumstance, levodopa treatment lacks effectiveness. A better understanding of the neural circuit mechanisms underlying FoG is required for a more targeted approach towards its treatment. To this end, we developed a viral vector (AAV2/9-CreON-A53T-αSyn) mouse model restricting synucleinopathy to local circuit elements, i.e. selected neuron subtypes within specific brain regions in vivo. We validated t

To survive, animals have to finely regulate their threat assessment and escape behavior. In mice, the brainstem dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG) generates innate defensive behaviors towards a multitude of threats, including predators, prey, and aggressive conspecifics. dPAG integrates threat information coming from diverse inputs with cognitive information coming from cortical areas such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Glutamatergic layer 5 neurons in ACC project to dPAG where they inhibit the expression of defensive behavior. In vivo single-unit recordings in dPAG identified two majo

Neuronal circuits located in the midbrain play a critical role in controlling defensive behavior. However, it is still elusive how different neuron types contribute to distinct behavioral outcomes during the presence of threat. In this study, we investigated neurons expressing vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) in the ventral periaqueductal gray (PAG) and dorsal raphe nucleus in mice. These VIP-expressing neurons also expressed tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), a marker for dopaminergic cells. Using viral tracing conducted in Vip-Cre mice, we observed that these VIP-expressing neurons innervated