Juliette M A Viellard, Fernando F Melleu, Alicia M Tamais, Alisson P de Almeida, Carolina Zerbini, Juliane M Ikebara, Karolina Domingues, Miguel A X de Lima, Fernando A Oliveira, Simone C Motta, Newton S Canteras
Animals need to detect threats, initiate defensive responses, and, in parallel, remember where the threat occurred to avoid the possibility of re-encountering it. By probing animals capable of detecting and avoiding a shock-related threatening location, we were able to reveal a septo-hippocampal-hypothalamic circuit that is also engaged in ethological threats, including predatory and social threats. Photometry analysis focusing on the dorsal premammillary nucleus (PMd), a critical interface of this circuit, showed that in freely tested animals, the nucleus appears ideal to work as a threat detector to sense dynamic changes under threatening conditions as the animal approaches and avoids the threatening source...
May 17, 2024: Current Biology: CB