Social Processing in the Amygdala: Single-Nucleus RNA-Sequencing Reveals Distinct Neuronal Responses to Dominant and Subordinate Cues.

ABSTRACT: The amygdala serves as a critical neural hub for interpreting social cues, with its distinct subregions and diverse neuronal populations playing specialized roles in processing these signals. This study employs single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) to characterize the amygdala's neuronal responses to olfactory cues associated with social dominance, uncovering distinct activation patterns within glutamatergic and GABAergic populations. We find that a glutamatergic cluster, characterized by expression patterns closely aligned with glutamatergic Slc17a7 (VGLUT1) medial amygdala (MeA) neurons, preferentially responds to dominant cues. In contrast, a larger glutamatergic Slc17a6 (VGLUT2) cluster associated with neurons of the MeA, as well as cortical and basomedial amygdala, e

SUBMITTER: Dwortz MF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12697553 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature