Topic: fear responses

The development of algorithms for high-accuracy animal tracking is fundamental to unravel the neural basis of behavior. The recent growth of Deeplabcut, an open source toolbox for marker-less pose estimation based on transfer learning with deep neural networks, promises to greatly enhance our ability to track animal pose with high-accuracy and high-efficiency, because it can match human labelling accuracy with minimal training data. Here, we implement Deeplabcut routines and develop a pipeline to accurately track the pose of mice undergoing defensive behaviors. Defensive behaviors are elicited

Oxytocin orchestrates social and emotional behaviors through modulation of neural circuits in brain structures such as the central amygdala (CeA). In this structure, the release of oxytocin modulates inhibitory circuits and subsequently suppresses fear responses and decreases anxiety levels. Using astrocyte-specific gain and loss of function approaches and pharmacology, we demonstrate that oxytocin signaling in the central amygdala relies on a subpopulation of astrocytes that represent a prerequisite for proper function of CeA circuits and adequate behavioral responses, both in rats and mice.