[2018 Fall Life Sciences & IBB Seminar]

▶Subject: Neuropeptide-Mediated Gating of Anxiety Circuits

▶Speaker: Vadim Bolshakov

▶Date: 2:30PM/Oct. 8(Mon.)/ 2018

▶Place: Auditorium(1F), Postech Biotech Center

▶Abctract
To understand the logic of circuit-level computations guiding behavior, it is necessary to define how the interactions between components of the circuitry are modulated in order to achieve certain behavioral outcomes. One of the most efficient strategies in the brain for directing information flow is the release of neuropeptides, which have strikingly specific effects on the function of behavior-driving microcircuits. However, synaptic and network-level mechanisms of neuropeptidergic control of behavioral processes are far from being completely understood. Here we focus on mechanisms underlying innate behavioral responses, such as innate fear, which are amenable to analyses at multiple functional levels. We found that the neuropeptide PACAP gates innate fear by differentially affecting synaptic efficacy at projections from the basolateral amygdala (BLA) to two different subdivisions of the dorsal subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), modifying the signal flow in BLA-ovBNST-adBNST circuits in such a way that adBNST is inhibited. Inhibition of adBNST is translated into reduced firing probability of adBNST neurons, explaining the anxiety-triggering actions of PACAP (delivered endogenously by projections from the parabrachial nucleus) in BNST, as inhibition of adBNST is anxiogenic. Our results reveal how anxiety-like behavioral processes are controlled by neuropeptides at the level of underlying neural circuits by inducing changes in functional interactions between their different structural components.

▶Inquiry: Joung-Hun Kim (279-2347)

* This seminar will be given in English.
Please refrain from taking photos during seminars. *