RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Multiple overlapping hypothalamus-brainstem circuits drive rapid threat avoidance
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 745075
DO 10.1101/745075
A1 Matthew Lovett-Barron
A1 Ritchie Chen
A1 Susanna Bradbury
A1 Aaron S Andalman
A1 Mahendra Wagle
A1 Su Guo
A1 Karl Deisseroth
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/08/24/745075.abstract
AB Animals survive environmental challenges by adapting their physiology and behavior through homeostatic regulatory processes, mediated in part by specific neuropeptide release from the hypothalamus. Animals can also avoid environmental stressors within seconds, a fast behavioral adaptation for which hypothalamic involvement is not established. Using brain-wide neural activity imaging in behaving zebrafish, here we find that hypothalamic neurons are rapidly engaged during common avoidance responses elicited by various environmental stressors. By developing methods to register cellular-resolution neural dynamics to multiplexed in situ gene expression, we find that each category of stressor recruits similar combinations of multiple peptidergic cell types in the hypothalamus. Anatomical analysis and functional manipulations demonstrate that these diverse cell types play shared roles in behavior, are glutamatergic, and converge upon spinal-projecting brainstem neurons required for avoidance. These data demonstrate that hypothalamic neural populations, classically associated with slow and specific homeostatic adaptations, also together give rise to fast and generalized avoidance behavior.