PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ruben Vale
AU  - Dario Campagner
AU  - Panagiota Iordanidou
AU  - Oriol Pavón Arocas
AU  - Yu Lin Tan
AU  - A. Vanessa Stempel
AU  - Sepideh Keshavarzi
AU  - Rasmus S. Petersen
AU  - Troy W. Margrie
AU  - Tiago Branco
TI  - A cortico-collicular circuit for accurate orientation to shelter during escape
AID  - 10.1101/2020.05.26.117598
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.05.26.117598
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/27/2020.05.26.117598.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/27/2020.05.26.117598.full
AB  - When faced with predatorial threats, escaping towards shelter is an adaptive action that offers long-term protection against the attacker. From crustaceans to mammals, animals rely on knowledge of safe locations in the environment to rapidly execute shelter-directed escape actions1–3. While previous work has identified neural mechanisms of instinctive escape4–9, it is not known how the escape circuit incorporates spatial information to execute rapid and accurate flights to safety. Here we show that mouse retrosplenial cortex (RSP) and superior colliculus (SC) form a monosynaptic circuit that continuously encodes the shelter direction. Inactivation of SC-projecting RSP neurons decreases SC shelter-direction tuning while preserving SC motor function. Moreover, specific inactivation of RSP input onto SC neurons disrupts orientation and subsequent escapes to shelter, but not orientation accuracy to a sensory cue. We conclude that the RSC-SC circuit supports an egocentric representation of shelter direction and is necessary for optimal shelter-directed escapes. This cortical-subcortical interface may be a general blueprint for increasing the sophistication and flexibility of instinctive behaviours.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.