Insular cortical circuits as an executive gateway to decipher threat or extinction memory via distinct subcortical pathways

Qi Wang, Jia-Jie Zhu, Lizhao Wang, Yan-Peng Kan, Yan-Mei Liu, Yan-Jiao Wu, Xue Gu, Xin Yi, Ze-Jie Lin, Qin Wang, Jian-Fei Lu, Qin Jiang, Ying Li, Ming-Gang Liu, Nan-Jie Xu, Michael X. Zhu, Lu-Yang Wang, Siyu Zhang (), Wei-Guang Li () and Tian-Le Xu ()
Additional contact information
Qi Wang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Jia-Jie Zhu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Lizhao Wang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Yan-Peng Kan: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Yan-Mei Liu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Yan-Jiao Wu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Xue Gu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Xin Yi: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Ze-Jie Lin: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Qin Wang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Jian-Fei Lu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Qin Jiang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Ying Li: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Ming-Gang Liu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Nan-Jie Xu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Michael X. Zhu: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Lu-Yang Wang: SickKids Research Institute
Siyu Zhang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Wei-Guang Li: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Tian-Le Xu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Abstract Threat and extinction memories are crucial for organisms’ survival in changing environments. These memories are believed to be encoded by separate ensembles of neurons in the brain, but their whereabouts remain elusive. Using an auditory fear-conditioning and extinction paradigm in male mice, here we discovered that two distinct projection neuron subpopulations in physical proximity within the insular cortex (IC), targeting the central amygdala (CeA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc), respectively, to encode fear and extinction memories. Reciprocal intracortical inhibition of these two IC subpopulations gates the emergence of either fear or extinction memory. Using rabies-virus-assisted tracing, we found IC-NAc projection neurons to be preferentially innervated by intercortical inputs from the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), specifically enhancing extinction to override fear memory. These results demonstrate that IC serves as an operation node harboring distinct projection neurons that decipher fear or extinction memory under the top-down executive control from OFC.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33241-9 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:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-33241-9

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33241-9

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 ().