In nature, animals display defensive behaviors that reflect the spatiotemporal distance of
threats. Laboratory-based paradigms that elicit specific defensive responses in rodents have …

Highlights•Populations of the amygdala complex drive positive and negative
valence.•Valence coding can be defined by neural responses to positive and negative …

It is well known that affective and pleasant touch promotes individual well-being and
facilitates affiliative social communication, although the neural circuit that mediates this …

General anesthesia (GA) can produce analgesia (loss of pain) independent of inducing loss
of consciousness, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We hypothesized that GA …

Sequential encoding of motor programs is essential for behavior generation. However,
whether it is critical for instinctive behavior is still largely unknown. Mouse hunting behavior …

Fear extinction is an adaptive process whereby defensive responses are attenuated
following repeated experience of prior fear-related stimuli without harm. The formation of …

Both the amygdala and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) have been implicated
in maladaptive anxiety characteristics of anxiety disorders. However, the underlying circuit …

The neural substrates for predatory hunting, an evolutionarily conserved appetitive behavior,
remain largely undefined. Photoactivation of zona incerta (ZI) GABAergic neurons strongly …

Functional neuroanatomy of Pavlovian fear has identified neuronal circuits and synapses
associating conditioned stimuli with aversive events. Hebbian plasticity within these …

The central amygdala (CeA) consists of numerous genetically defined inhibitory neurons
that control defensive and appetitive behaviors including feeding. Transcriptomic signatures …