A parvalbumin-positive excitatory visual pathway to trigger fear responses in mice

分类： 生物学 >> 生物物理学 提交时间： 2016-05-12

Shang, Congping Liu, Zhihui Chen, Zijun Shi, Yingchao Wang, Qian Liu, Su Li, Dapeng Cao, Peng Shang, Congping Chen, Zijun Shi, Yingchao

摘要： The fear responses to environmental threats play a fundamental role in survival. Little is known about the neural circuits specifically processing threat-relevant sensory information in the mammalian brain. We identified parvalbumin-positive (PV+) excitatory projection neurons in mouse superior colliculus (SC) as a key neuronal subtype for detecting looming objects and triggering fear responses. These neurons, distributed predominantly in the superficial SC, divergently projected to different brain areas, including the parabigeminal nucleus (PBGN), an intermediate station leading to the amygdala. Activation of the PV+ SC-PBGN pathway triggered fear responses, induced conditioned aversion, and caused depression-related behaviors. Approximately 20% of mice subjected to the fear-conditioning paradigm developed a generalized fear memory.

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