Survival behaviors

…structures involved in regulation of survival behaviors, we show how the dynamical properties of neural populations give rise to motivational states that change animal behavior on a timescale of min

All animals possess a repertoire of survival behaviors, such as aggression and reproduction, that are under strong evolutionary constraints. In vertebrates, the hypothalamus plays a key role in regulating these behaviors. The prevailing view of this neural system posits that hypothalamic nuclei are organized as ‘labeled lines’ – populations of behavior-specific neurons with characteristic transcriptional and connectomic profiles. This model seems to fit regions such as the medial preoptic area (MPOA, whose activation causes reproductive behaviors), which contains multiple behavior-specific neu