A Dedicated Hypothalamic Oxytocin Circuit Controls Aversive Social Learning
- Description
Fighting is a major means to compete for limited resources in the wild. After the fight ends, the loser continuously avoids close interaction with the winner and readily flees when confronted. The neural mechanisms that underlie the rapid and long-lasting behavioral changes induced by defeat remains unclear. This study identified oxytocin neurons in the retrochiasmatic supraoptic nucleus and oxytocin-receptor-expressing cells in the anterior subdivision of the ventromedial hypothalamus as a key circuit motif for defeat-induced social avoidance through a series of functional manipulation and recording experiments in mice. The dataset contains fiber photometry recording data, behavior annotations, tracking, and raw representative histology images. These data reveal the crucial role of oxytocin in social behavior plasticity and expanded the list of regions through which oxytocin can modulate negative social responses.
Access
- Restrictions
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Free to All
- Instructions
- Fiber photometry recording data, behavior annotations, tracking, and raw representative histology images, including MATLAB codes used in this study can be downloaded from Zenodo. Illustrations of the coronal brain sections were based on the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas.
- Grant Support
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Uehara Memorial Foundation/Uehara Memorial FoundationJSPS Overseas Research Fellowship/Japan Society for the Promotion of ScienceOsamu Hayaishi Memorial Scholarship/Japanese Biochemical SocietyIchiro Kanehara Foundation/Ichiro Kanehara Foundation