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    Home > Active Ingredient News > Study of Nervous System > Why can animals avoid predators?

    Why can animals avoid predators?

    • Last Update: 2021-05-09
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Click on the blue letters to pay attention to our animals being able to escape quickly after encountering danger.

    Of course, escaping is also a technical task.
    It is necessary to formulate an escape route according to the current environment, as well as accurate spatial navigation and good motor coordination.

    Running aimlessly may cost your life.

    The most closely related to escape in the brain is the gray around the dorsolateral aqueduct (dlPAG): activate this brain area to promote escape, and inhibit this brain area to inhibit escape behavior.

    On April 16, 2021, Neuron magazine published an article by Avishek Adhikari's research team in the Department of Psychology, University of California, "Coordination of escape and spatial navigation circuits orchestrates versatile flight from threats", revealing that the rodent hypothalamus is highly effective in the escape process The key neural circuit for coordinated movement and spatial information.

    Animal escape behavior model researchers place the mice in the environment of rats or toy mice.
    Since the rats will attack and bite the mice, the mice need to climb the ladder placed in the corner of the device in order to survive, and then go into the cave.
    Can save lives.

    The desire to survive was evaluated by counting the number of times the mice climbed the ladder.

    Chemical genetics technology manipulates the PMd brain area CCKergic neurons to project from the hypothalamus to the dlPAG brain area is mainly dorsal prepapillary nucleus (PMd), PMd brain area mainly expresses excitatory neurons and cholecystokinin (CCK) neurons.

    In the above escape experiment, after chronically inhibiting CCK neurons in the PMd brain area, the number of times that mice survived and climbed stairs decreased, while the number of times that mice climbed significantly increased after activating this type of neurons.

    Escape behavior models in different scenarios.
    Then the researchers placed the mice in a 43 degree Celsius heating pad or high-concentration carbon dioxide and other dangerous environments.
    The mice would also escape the dangerous area through the corner ladder.

    In addition, mice showed aimless bounce behavior in high concentrations of carbon dioxide.

    In these environments, mice that inhibit CCK neurons have a reduced desire to survive and are reluctant to climb the life-saving ladder; while activating this type of neuron promotes the escape of mice.

    After they further used optogenetics to specifically activate the CCK neurons in the PMd brain area, even when there was no danger, the mice would run and bounce wantonly in the empty box, showing full survival.
    behavior.

    After injecting AAV-GCaMP6s into the PMd brain area, the researchers embedded Grins lens to achieve calcium imaging in the deep brain area, and recorded the activity of CCK neurons in three escape models of rat threat, heating blanket, and high-concentration carbon dioxide.

    Analyzing the activity changes of the above-mentioned neuron group through hidden Markov model, it is found that the information of escape code is the key feature of the CCK neuron group in the PMd brain area.

    In addition, in the presence of rat threats, the extensive activation of CCK neuron groups in the heating blanket environment occurs before the escape behavior occurs, about 5 seconds in advance; while in the high-concentration carbon dioxide environment, the activation of the CCK neuron groups occurs in the escape behavior.
    After it happened.

    Studies have shown that the anteromedial ventral nucleus (amv) of the thalamus and dlPAG are the main input brain areas of the PMd brain area.

    Recording by optical fiber calcium imaging technology showed that the neuronal activity of CCK neurons in the PMd brain area projected to dlPAG (hereinafter referred to as the PMd-dlPAG loop) is closely related to the escape behavior in the above three escape models and has a wide range.

    The neurons that project from CCK neurons in the PMd brain area to amv (hereinafter referred to as the PMd-amv loop) are related to the escape behavior in specific environments such as rat threats and electric blankets, and have spatial specificity.

    Photoinhibition of the PMd-dlPAG loop can weaken the escape behavior in the above three escape models, but the photoinhibition of the PMd-amv loop can only weaken the escape behavior in the two escape models of rat threat and heating.

    This indicates that the neural circuits projected from the PMd brain area to different brain areas cooperate to complete the escape efficiently.

    In general, this article reveals that PMd acts as a "control center" during the escape process when encountering threats: activate the PMd-dlPAG loop to initiate escape behavior, and at the same time, immediately "load" spatial information through the PMd-amv loop to achieve Purposeful and planned escape behavior.

    [References] 1.
    https://doi.
    org/10.
    1016/j.
    neuron.
    2021.
    03.
    033 The pictures in the article are all from the references
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