Prefrontal control of superior colliculus modulates innate escape behavior following adversity

Ami Ritter, Shlomi Habusha, Lior Givon, Shahaf Edut and Oded Klavir ()
Additional contact information
Ami Ritter: The University of Haifa
Shlomi Habusha: The University of Haifa
Lior Givon: The University of Haifa
Shahaf Edut: The University of Haifa
Oded Klavir: The University of Haifa

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Innate defensive responses, though primarily instinctive, must also be highly adaptive to changes in risk assessment. However, adaptive changes can become maladaptive, following severe stress, as seen in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a series of experiments, we observed long-term changes in innate escape behavior of male mice towards a previously non-threatening stimulus following an adverse shock experience manifested as a shift in the threshold of threat response. By recording neural activity in the superior colliculus (SC) while phototagging specific responses to afferents, we established the crucial influence of input arriving at the SC from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), both directly and indirectly, on escape-related activity after adverse shock experience. Inactivating these specific projections during the shock effectively abolished the observed changes. Conversely, optogenetically activating them during encounters controlled escape responses. This establishes the necessity and sufficiency of those specific mPFC inputs into the SC for adverse experience related changes in innate escape behavior.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46460-z 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:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-46460-z

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46460-z

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 ().