小柯机器人

前额叶回路可对一般危险和特定威胁进行表征，这一成果由法国波尔多大学Cyril Herry、Mario Martin-Fernandez研究小组经过不懈努力而取得。2023年10月30日出版的《自然-神经科学》发表了这项成果。

研究人员采用了一种将小鼠暴露在不同的威胁情境中的新行为范式，发现背内侧前额叶皮层（dmPFC）在编码危险总体表征的同时还编码了每种威胁的特定神经元表征。重要的是，在缺乏特定威胁表征的错误试验中，危险的总体表征仍然存在。与之一致的是，光遗传前额叶抑制会损害整体行为的表现和对不同威胁情况的辨别，而不会对主动或被动行为产生任何偏差。这些数据共同表明，前额叶皮层同时编码危险的整体表征和威胁的特定表征，以调控防御行为的选择。

据了解，对潜在威胁的行为适应既需要对危险进行整体表征使生物体做好及时反应的准备，也需要识别特定情况的威胁以选择适当的行为反应。众所周知，前额叶皮层调控与威胁相关的行为，但它是否能编码整体防御状态和/或特定威胁却不得而知。

附：英文原文

Title: Prefrontal circuits encode both general danger and specific threat representations

Author: Martin-Fernandez, Mario, Menegolla, Ana Paula, Lopez-Fernandez, Guillem, Winke, Nanci, Jercog, Daniel, Kim, Ha-Rang, Girard, Delphine, Dejean, Cyril, Herry, Cyril

Issue&Volume: 2023-10-30

Abstract: Behavioral adaptation to potential threats requires both a global representation of danger to prepare the organism to react in a timely manner but also the identification of specific threatening situations to select the appropriate behavioral responses. The prefrontal cortex is known to control threat-related behaviors, yet it is unknown whether it encodes global defensive states and/or the identity of specific threatening encounters. Using a new behavioral paradigm that exposes mice to different threatening situations, we show that the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) encodes a general representation of danger while simultaneously encoding a specific neuronal representation of each threat. Importantly, the global representation of danger persisted in error trials that instead lacked specific threat identity representations. Consistently, optogenetic prefrontal inhibition impaired overall behavioral performance and discrimination of different threatening situations without any bias toward active or passive behaviors. Together, these data indicate that the prefrontal cortex encodes both a global representation of danger and specific representations of threat identity to control the selection of defensive behaviors.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01472-8

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01472-8

Nature Neuroscience：《自然—神经科学》，创刊于1998年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：28.771
官方网址：https://www.nature.com/neuro/
投稿链接：https://mts-nn.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex