Topic: ventrolateral PAG

The dorsal tegmentum including the ventrolateral PAG (vlPAG) and dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) plays a critical role in controlling anxiety, fear memory formation, autonomic processes and most particularly, it is involved in descending modulation of pain processing. It has been shown that different neuron types, such as dopaminergic and serotonergic cells are part of this circuitry – besides the glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons – however their functions remained unclear. Here, we explored the neuronal activity in the vlPAG and DRN in urethane-anesthetized mice in response to different types of

Interoception, the process through which afferent information reaches the brain to report the body's physiological state, is a critical element in adapting responses to potential threats. Cardiac interoceptive information has been shown to play a crucial role in these adaptive defensive processes. Neuronal circuits within the periaqueductal grey (PAG) play a pivotal role in controlling heart function, yet it remains unknown how PAG circuits process interoceptive signals as part of a defensive reaction to threats. Employing trans-synaptic retrograde tracing, we demonstrate that glycinergic neur