Topic: survival

Ann Kennedy discusses theoretical approaches to subcortical circuits that support survival, motivation, threat responses and pain. Topics include neural heterogeneity, protein-related timescales, nervous-system evolution and the limits of focusing exclusively on spikes and cortex. She also describes efforts to make automated behavioural labels consistent across experiments.

Organisms face challenges to survival throughout life. When we freeze or flee in danger, we often feel fear. Tracing the deep history of danger gives a different perspective. The first cells living billions of years ago had to detect and respond to danger in order to survive. Life is about not being dead, and behavior is a major way that organisms hold death off. Although behavior does not require a nervous system, complex organisms have brain circuits for detecting and responding to danger, the deep roots of which go back to the first cells. But these circuits do not make fear, and fear is no