Breathing-driven prefrontal oscillations regulate maintenance of conditioned-fear evoked freezing independently of initiation

Sophie Bagur (), Julie M. Lefort, Marie M. Lacroix, Gaëtan Lavilléon, Cyril Herry, Mathilde Chouvaeff, Clara Billand, Hélène Geoffroy and Karim Benchenane ()
Additional contact information
Sophie Bagur: PSL University
Julie M. Lefort: PSL University
Marie M. Lacroix: PSL University
Gaëtan Lavilléon: PSL University
Cyril Herry: INSERM, Neurocentre Magendie
Mathilde Chouvaeff: PSL University
Clara Billand: PSL University
Hélène Geoffroy: PSL University
Karim Benchenane: PSL University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Brain–body interactions are thought to be essential in emotions but their physiological basis remains poorly understood. In mice, regular 4 Hz breathing appears during freezing after cue-fear conditioning. Here we show that the olfactory bulb (OB) transmits this rhythm to the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) where it organizes neural activity. Reduction of the respiratory-related 4 Hz oscillation, via bulbectomy or optogenetic perturbation of the OB, reduces freezing. Behavioural modelling shows that this is due to a specific reduction in freezing maintenance without impacting its initiation, thus dissociating these two phenomena. dmPFC LFP and firing patterns support the region’s specific function in freezing maintenance. In particular, population analysis reveals that network activity tracks 4 Hz power dynamics during freezing and reaches a stable state at 4 Hz peak that lasts until freezing termination. These results provide a potential mechanism and a functional role for bodily feedback in emotions and therefore shed light on the historical James–Cannon debate.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22798-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-22798-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22798-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().