RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 PAG neurons encode a simplified action-selective signal during aggression
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 745067
DO 10.1101/745067
A1 Annegret L. Falkner
A1 Dongyu Wei
A1 Anjeli Song
A1 Li W. Watsek
A1 Irene Chen
A1 James E. Feng
A1 Dayu Lin
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/08/24/745067.abstract
AB Summary While the ventromedial hypothalamus, ventrolateral area (VMHvl) is now well established as a critical locus for the generation of conspecific aggression, its role is complex, with populations of neurons responding during the motivational, sensory, and action phases of aggression, and also during social interactions with the opposite sex. It has been previously unclear how the brain uses this complex multidimensional signal and generates a discrete action: the attack. Here we find that the largest posterior target of the VMHvl, the lateral periaqueductal gray (lPAG) encodes a simplified attack-selective signal during aggression. Single units in the lPAG exhibit greater selectivity for the attack action during aggression than VMHvl neurons and a subpopulation of neurons in the PAG exhibit short-latency, time-locked spiking relative to the activity of jaw muscles for biting during attack. In addition, channelrhodopsin assisted circuit mapping reveals a preferential projection from VMHvl glutamatergic cells to lPAG glutamatergic cells. Using projection-specific fiber photometry, we find that this excitatory projection conveys male-biased signals from the VMHvl to downstream glutamatergic PAG neurons that integrate ongoing male-related activity over several seconds, which suggests that action-selectivity is generated by a combination of both pre and postsynaptic filtering mechanisms.