Dynamic encoding of social threat and spatial context in the hypothalamus
Social aggression and avoidance are defensive behaviors expressed by territorial animals in a manner appropriate to spatial context and experience. The ventromedial hypothalamus controls both social aggression and avoidance, suggesting that it may encode a general internal state of threat modulated...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
21 September 2020
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| In: |
eLife
Year: 2020, Volume: 9, Pages: 1-20 |
| ISSN: | 2050-084X |
| DOI: | 10.7554/eLife.57148 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.57148 Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://elifesciences.org/articles/57148 
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| Author Notes: | Piotr Krzywkowski, Beatrice Penna, Cornelius T Gross |
| Summary: | Social aggression and avoidance are defensive behaviors expressed by territorial animals in a manner appropriate to spatial context and experience. The ventromedial hypothalamus controls both social aggression and avoidance, suggesting that it may encode a general internal state of threat modulated by space and experience. Here, we show that neurons in the mouse ventromedial hypothalamus are activated both by the presence of a social threat as well as by a chamber where social defeat previously occurred. Moreover, under conditions where the animal could move freely between a home and defeat chamber, firing activity emerged that predicted the animal’s position, demonstrating the dynamic encoding of spatial context in the hypothalamus. Finally, we found that social defeat induced a functional reorganization of neural activity as optogenetic activation could elicit avoidance after, but not before social defeat. These findings reveal how the hypothalamus dynamically encodes spatial and sensory cues to drive social behaviors. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 12.09.2025 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 2050-084X |
| DOI: | 10.7554/eLife.57148 |