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| Poster #Learning & Memory Directing negative emotional states through amygdala-striatal circuitry |
| Sarah E. Sniffen1, Sang Eun Ryu1, Milayna M. Kokoska1, Janardhan Bhattarai2, Yingqi Wang2, Ellyse R. Thomas1, Graylin M. Skates1, Natalie L. Johnson1, Andy A. Chavez1, Sophia R. Iaconis1, Emma Janke2, Yun-Feng Zhang2,3, Minghong Ma1, Daniel W. Wesson2 1Depts of Neuroscience and Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Florida Chemical Senses Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States 2Dept of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States 3State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, --, China |
Learning to correctly respond to odors guides foraging, danger avoidance, and social communication. However, the neural circuitry underlying emotional odor learning and behavioral responses to learned odors remains unknown. Our lab recently identified that two cell types encoding the dopamine D1 and D2 receptors (drd1 and drd2) within the basolateral amygdala (BLA) form parallel glutamatergic pathways for communication with the ventral striatum. To determine how these ventral striatum projecting BLA circuits direct emotional behaviors, we optogenetically stimulated or chemogenetically inhibited the drd1+ or drd2+ BLA neurons that project to either the nucleus accumbens or the tubular striatum while mice engaged in a real time place preference/aversion task or an odor-shock Pavlovian fear learning paradigm. Using this strategy, we found that these parallel pathways distinctly influence both learned and unlearned negative emotional states when they are activated or suppressed, and do so depending upon their synaptic target in the ventral striatum – with unique contributions of drd1+ nucleus accumbens projecting versus drd2+ tubular striatum projecting BLA neurons. Ongoing work utilizing two-photon calcium imaging will investigate the striatum projecting amygdalar ensemble encoding of emotional odor learning. These results expand our understanding of how odors acquire emotional significance and reveal insights into how amygdala-striatal circuitry orchestrates emotional responses to odors. |