Investigation of the neural circuits mediating instrumental active avoidance and non instrumental contextual avoidance.

Author(s)

Juliette Marguerite Alix Viellard

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB/SDI)
• Defense date: 2019-12-20

Examining board members

Newton Sabino Canteras; Dixie Caroline Blanchard; Antonio de Pádua Carobrez; Cyril Herry; Yann Humeau; Deborah Suchecki

• Advisor: Newton Sabino Canteras

Abstract

Mammals, including rodents show a broad range of defensive behaviors as a mean of coping actively, such as avoidance behaviors, or passively such as freezing behavior. The avoidance response is a learned response in which an individual takes control in dangerous situations to deal with threats. One form of avoidance that has been investigated is the signaled active avoidance, where individuals are trained to avoid an environment, and escape in response to a cue previously associated with an aversive stimulus. It has been emphasized that the dmPFC plays an important role in encoding freezing acquisition and expression as well as active avoidance responses. However the neural circuits of the dmPFC processing the expression and aquisition of both active and passive coping strategies are yet to be discovered. To adress this question, we developed a novel behavioral paradigm in which a mouse has the possibility to either passively freeze to an aversive stimulus or to actively avoid it as a function of contextual contingencies. We first investigated the role of the pathway between the dmPFC and PAG in signaled active avoidance, and its relation with freezing. Our results indicate that (i) dmPFC and dl/lPAG sub-regions are activated during avoidance behavior, (ii) and that the optogenetic inhibition of this pathway blocked the acquisition of active avoidance. A non-instrumental form of avoidance is also investigated where the individual learns to avoid the aversive environment using contextual clues only, and displaying risk assessment behaviors toward the fearful environment. It has been previously shown that in this situation, a circuit involving the septohippocampal-hypothalamic-brainstem pathway is involved. It also revealed that the dorsal premammillary nucleus (PMD) must be critically involved in contextual passive avoidance. We analysed how the manipulation of the PMD and its projections to its main targets influences the expression and re-consolidation processes of contextual passive avoidance. Our results showed that (i) a specific septohippocampal-hypothalamic-braintem pathway is involved in our passive avoidance paradigm. (ii) Silencing the PMD during context exposure impairs both avoidance expression and memory reconsolidation and that (iii) the inhibition at terminal level impairs the expression and memory reconsolidation in both dlPAG and AMv. Both parts of the project assessed these questions using Fos immunochemistry analysis, manipulations of neural circuits using optogenetic, and pharmacogenetic techniques. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/08640-7 - Neuronal circuits mediating the instrumental and non-instrumental avoidance
• Grantee: Juliette Marguerite Alix Viellard
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate