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Behavioural neuroscience

Going on the defensive

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 16, page 247 (2015)Cite this article

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The ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) has been implicated in defensive behaviours, which animals adopt to avoid danger; however, its precise role and the underlying neural circuitry are unclear. Two new studies reveal the VMH to be a key orchestrator of multiple defensive behaviours in mice.

In the CNS, the expression of steroidogenic factor 1 (SF1) is largely restricted to the dorsomedial and central parts of the VMH (VMHdm/c). The authors of each of the studies virally expressed channelrhodopsin 2 (ChR2) in SF1-expressing (SF1+) neurons in mice, allowing them to optogenetically manipulate neural activity in the VMHdm/c in behaving animals.

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References

  1. Wang, L., Chen, I. Z. & Lin, D. Collateral pathways from the ventromedial hypothalamus mediate defensive behaviors. Neuron 85, 1344–1358 (2015)

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  2. Kunwar, P. S. et al. Ventromedial hypothalamic neurons control a defensive emotion state. eLife http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06633 (2015)

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Authors
  1. Darran Yates
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Yates, D. Going on the defensive. Nat Rev Neurosci 16, 247 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3952

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