Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations
The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is at the core of numerous psychiatric conditions, including fear and anxiety-related disorders. Whereas an abundance of evidence suggests a crucial role of the mPFC in regulating fear behaviour, the precise role of the mPFC in this process is not yet entirely cle...
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Académie des sciences
2023-12-01
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| Series: | Comptes Rendus Biologies |
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| Online Access: | https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/articles/10.5802/crbiol.126/ |
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| author | Herry, Cyril Jercog, Daniel |
| author_facet | Herry, Cyril Jercog, Daniel |
| author_sort | Herry, Cyril |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is at the core of numerous psychiatric conditions, including fear and anxiety-related disorders. Whereas an abundance of evidence suggests a crucial role of the mPFC in regulating fear behaviour, the precise role of the mPFC in this process is not yet entirely clear. While studies at the single-cell level have demonstrated the involvement of this area in various aspects of fear processing, such as the encoding of threat-related cues and fear expression, an increasingly prevalent idea in the systems neuroscience field is that populations of neurons are, in fact, the essential unit of computation in many integrative brain regions such as prefrontal areas. What mPFC neuronal populations represent when we face threats? To address this question, we performed electrophysiological single-unit population recordings in the dorsal mPFC while mice faced threat-predicting cues eliciting defensive behaviours, and performed pharmacological and optogenetic inactivations of this area and the amygdala. Our data indicated that the presence of threat-predicting cues induces a stable coding dynamics of internally driven representations in the dorsal mPFC, necessary to drive learned defensive behaviours. Moreover, these neural population representations primary reflect learned associations rather than specific defensive behaviours, and the construct of such representations relies on the functional integrity of the amygdala. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-8e5057ba5b1d4724a13e6c28c9eda592 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1768-3238 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-12-01 |
| publisher | Académie des sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Comptes Rendus Biologies |
| spelling | doaj-art-8e5057ba5b1d4724a13e6c28c9eda5922025-02-07T10:37:09ZengAcadémie des sciencesComptes Rendus Biologies1768-32382023-12-01346G212713810.5802/crbiol.12610.5802/crbiol.126Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations Herry, Cyril0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2973-0843Jercog, Daniel1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3849-9196INSERM, Neurocentre Magendie, U1215, 146 Rue Léo-Saignat, 33077 Bordeaux, France; Univ. Bordeaux, Neurocentre Magendie, U1215, 146 Rue Léo-Saignat, 33077 Bordeaux, FranceINSERM, Neurocentre Magendie, U1215, 146 Rue Léo-Saignat, 33077 Bordeaux, France; Univ. Bordeaux, Neurocentre Magendie, U1215, 146 Rue Léo-Saignat, 33077 Bordeaux, FranceThe medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is at the core of numerous psychiatric conditions, including fear and anxiety-related disorders. Whereas an abundance of evidence suggests a crucial role of the mPFC in regulating fear behaviour, the precise role of the mPFC in this process is not yet entirely clear. While studies at the single-cell level have demonstrated the involvement of this area in various aspects of fear processing, such as the encoding of threat-related cues and fear expression, an increasingly prevalent idea in the systems neuroscience field is that populations of neurons are, in fact, the essential unit of computation in many integrative brain regions such as prefrontal areas. What mPFC neuronal populations represent when we face threats? To address this question, we performed electrophysiological single-unit population recordings in the dorsal mPFC while mice faced threat-predicting cues eliciting defensive behaviours, and performed pharmacological and optogenetic inactivations of this area and the amygdala. Our data indicated that the presence of threat-predicting cues induces a stable coding dynamics of internally driven representations in the dorsal mPFC, necessary to drive learned defensive behaviours. Moreover, these neural population representations primary reflect learned associations rather than specific defensive behaviours, and the construct of such representations relies on the functional integrity of the amygdala.https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/articles/10.5802/crbiol.126/Associative learningMedial prefrontal cortexPopulation codingMachine learning |
| spellingShingle | Herry, Cyril Jercog, Daniel Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations Comptes Rendus Biologies Associative learning Medial prefrontal cortex Population coding Machine learning |
| title | Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations
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| title_full | Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations
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| title_fullStr | Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations
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| title_full_unstemmed | Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations
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| title_short | Stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations
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| title_sort | stable coding of aversive associations in medial prefrontal populations |
| topic | Associative learning Medial prefrontal cortex Population coding Machine learning |
| url | https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/articles/10.5802/crbiol.126/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT herrycyril stablecodingofaversiveassociationsinmedialprefrontalpopulations AT jercogdaniel stablecodingofaversiveassociationsinmedialprefrontalpopulations |