Dynamic encoding of social threat and spatial context in the hypothalamus.

ABSTRACT: Social aggression and avoidance are defensive behaviors expressed by territorial animals in a manner appropriate to spatial context and experience. The ventromedial hypothalamus controls both social aggression and avoidance, suggesting that it may encode a general internal state of threat modulated by space and experience. Here, we show that neurons in the mouse ventromedial hypothalamus are activated both by the presence of a social threat as well as by a chamber where social defeat previously occurred. Moreover, under conditions where the animal could move freely between a home and defeat chamber, firing activity emerged that predicted the animal's position, demonstrating the dynamic encoding of spatial context in the hypothalamus. Finally, we found that social defeat induced a functiona

SUBMITTER: Krzywkowski P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7505658 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature