scholarly journals Behavioral and brain mechanisms mediating conditioned flight behavior in rats

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Totty ◽  
Naomi Warren ◽  
Isabella Huddleston ◽  
Karthik R. Ramanathan ◽  
Reed L. Ressler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Compound Stimulus ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Flight Behavior ◽  
Central Nucleus ◽  
Stria Terminalis ◽  
Conditioning Context ◽  
Bed Nucleus ◽  
Contextual Fear ◽  
Male And Female Rats ◽  
Innate Fear

ABSTRACTEnvironmental contexts and associative learning can inform animals of potential threats, though it is currently unknown how contexts bias defensive transitions. Here we investigated context-dependent flight responses in the Pavlovian serial-compound stimulus (SCS) paradigm. We show here that SCS-evoked flight behavior in male and female rats is dependent on contextual fear. Flight was reduced in the conditioning context after context extinction and could be evoked in a different shock-associated context. Although flight was exclusive to white noise stimuli, it was nonetheless associative insofar as rats that received an equal number of unpaired USs did not show flight-like behavior. Finally, we found that inactivation of either the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) or bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) attenuated both contextual fear and flight responses. This work demonstrates that contextual fear summates with cued and innate fear to drive a high fear state and freeze-to-flight transitions.

scholarly journals Behavioral and brain mechanisms mediating conditioned flight behavior in rats

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Totty ◽  
Naomi Warren ◽  
Isabella Huddleston ◽  
Karthik R. Ramanathan ◽  
Reed L. Ressler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Compound Stimulus ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Flight Behavior ◽  
Central Nucleus ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Bed Nucleus ◽  
Contextual Fear ◽  
Male And Female Rats ◽  
Context Dependent

AbstractEnvironmental contexts can inform animals of potential threats, though it is currently unknown how context biases the selection of defensive behavior. Here we investigated context-dependent flight responses with a Pavlovian serial-compound stimulus (SCS) paradigm that evokes freeze-to-flight transitions. Similar to previous work in mice, we show that male and female rats display context-dependent flight-like behavior in the SCS paradigm. Flight behavior was dependent on contextual fear insofar as it was only evoked in a shock-associated context and was reduced in the conditioning context after context extinction. Flight behavior was only expressed to white noise regardless of temporal order within the compound. Nonetheless, rats that received unpaired SCS trials did not show flight-like behavior to the SCS, indicating it is associative. Finally, we show that pharmacological inactivation of two brain regions critical to the expression of contextual fear, the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), attenuates both contextual fear and flight responses. All of these effects were similar in male and female rats. This work demonstrates that contextual fear can summate with cued and innate fear to drive a high fear state and transition from post-encounter to circa-strike defensive modes.

scholarly journals Sex-Specific Effects of Relaxin-3 on Food Intake and Brain Expression of Corticotropin-Releasing Factor in Rats

Endocrinology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 156 (2) ◽  
pp. 523-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Lenglos ◽  
Juliane Calvez ◽  
Elena Timofeeva
Keyword(s):  
Food Intake ◽  
Plasma Corticosterone ◽  
Corticotropin Releasing Factor ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Male Rats ◽  
Hypothalamic Nucleus ◽  
Stria Terminalis ◽  
Bed Nucleus ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Male And Female Rats

This study compared the effects of relaxin-3 (RLN3) on food intake, plasma corticosterone, and the expression of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) in male and female rats. RLN3 was injected into the lateral ventricle at 25, 200, and 800 pmol concentrations. RLN3 at 25 pmol increased food intake (grams) at 30 and 60 minutes after injection in female but not male rats. Female rats also showed higher increase in relative to body weight (BW) food intake (mg/g BW) for all RLN3 concentrations at 30 minutes and for 800 pmol of RLN3 at 60 minutes. Moreover, RLN3 at 800 pmol significantly increased 24-hour BW gain in female but not male rats. At 60 minutes after administration, 800 pmol of RLN3 produced a significant increase in plasma corticosterone and in the expression of CRF and c-fos mRNAs in the parvocellular paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus (PVN) in male but not female rats. The levels of c-fos mRNA in the magnocellular PVN were increased by RLN3 but did not differ between the sexes. Conversely, expression of CRF mRNA in the medial preoptic area was increased in female rats but was not sensitive to 800 pmol of RLN3. In the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, 800 pmol of RLN3 significantly increased CRF mRNA expression in female but not male rats. Therefore, female rats showed more sensitivity and stronger food intake increase in response to RLN3. The differential effects of RLN3 on CRF expression in the PVN and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis may contribute to the sex-specific difference in the behavioral response.

scholarly journals Neurochemically distinct populations of the bed nucleus of stria terminalis modulate innate fear response to weak threat evoked by predator odor stimuli

2021 ◽  
pp. 100415
Author(s):  
Biborka Bruzsik ◽  
Laszlo Biro ◽  
Klara Rebeka Sarosdi ◽  
Dora Zelena ◽  
Eszter Sipos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Predator Odor ◽  
Stria Terminalis ◽  
Fear Response ◽  
Bed Nucleus ◽  
Innate Fear

scholarly journals Threat imminence dictates the role of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in contextual fear

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis D. Goode ◽  
Gillian M. Acca ◽  
Stephen Maren
Keyword(s):  
Unconditioned Stimulus ◽  
Fear Conditioning ◽  
Stria Terminalis ◽  
Conditioning Procedure ◽  
Conditioned Stimuli ◽  
Reversible Inactivation ◽  
Bed Nucleus ◽  
Contextual Fear ◽  
Context Dependent

ABSTRACTPrevious work indicates that the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is involved in defensive freezing to unpredictable Pavlovian conditioned stimuli (Goode et al., 2019). Here we show that the BNST mediates freezing to contexts paired with remote (unpredictable), but not imminent (predictable), footshock. Rats underwent a fear conditioning procedure in which a single footshock unconditioned stimulus (US) was delivered either 1 (imminent) or 9 minutes (remote) after placement in the context; each rat received a total of four conditioning trials over two days. Contexts associated with either imminent or remote USs produced distinct patterns of freezing and shock-induced activity but freezing in each case was context-dependent. Reversible inactivation of the BNST reduced the expression of contextual freezing in the context paired with remote, but not imminent, footshock. Implications of these data are discussed in light of recent conceptualizations of BNST function, as well as for anxiety behaviors.

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