Topic: vCA1 pyramidal neurons

The formation of memories in response to aversive or rewarding stimuli is crucial in guiding avoidance or approach behaviors. Scattered, projection-defined neuronal populations within the basolateral amygdala (BLA) selectively activate during encoding and retrieval of memories associated with either positive or negative valence. Interestingly, BLA neurons projecting to the CA1 area of the ventral hippocampus (vCA1) respond to both positive or negative predicting cues with no marked bias, suggesting that, within the whole responding population, two distinct subnetworks relay opposite informatio

In emotion research, anxiety and fear have always been interconnected, sharing overlapping brain structures and neural circuitry. Recent investigations, however, have unveiled parallel long-range projection pathways originating from the ventral hippocampus, shedding light on their distinct roles in anxiety and fear. Specifically, vCA1 projections to the lateral hypothalamus and medial prefrontal cortex are associated with anxiety-related experiences, whereas vCA1 projections to the amygdala mediate context-dependent fear. However, the precise mechanisms coordinating these parallel vCA1 project