1. Direct auditory cortical input to the lateral periaqueductal gray controls sound-driven defensive behavior.
- Author
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Wang, Haitao, Chen, Jiahui, Xu, Xiaotong, Sun, Wen-Jian, Chen, Xi, Zhao, Fei, Luo, Min-Hua, Liu, Chunhua, Guo, Yiping, Xie, Wen, Zhong, Hui, Bai, Tongjian, Tian, Yanghua, Mao, Yu, Ye, Chonghuan, Tao, Wenjuan, Li, Jie, Farzinpour, Zahra, Li, Juan, and Zhou, Jiang-Ning
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AUDITORY cortex , *DEFENSIVENESS (Psychology) , *NEURAL pathways , *GABAERGIC neurons , *ANIMAL behavior , *CYTOLOGY , *INFERIOR colliculus - Abstract
Threatening sounds can elicit a series of defensive behavioral reactions in animals for survival, but the underlying neural substrates are not fully understood. Here, we demonstrate a previously unexplored neural pathway in mice that projects directly from the auditory cortex (ACx) to the lateral periaqueductal gray (lPAG) and controls noise-evoked defensive behaviors. Electrophysiological recordings showed that the lPAG could be excited by a loud noise that induced an escape-like behavior. Trans-synaptic viral tracing showed that a great number of glutamatergic neurons, rather than GABAergic neurons, in the lPAG were directly innervated by those in layer V of the ACx. Activation of this pathway by optogenetic manipulations produced a behavior in mice that mimicked the noise-evoked escape, whereas inhibition of the pathway reduced this behavior. Therefore, our newly identified descending pathway is a novel neural substrate for noise-evoked escape and is involved in controlling the threat-related behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
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