Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Reis, Fernando M. C. V.
• Maesta-Pereira, Sandra
• Ollivier, Matthias
• Schuette, Peter J.
• Sethi, Ekayana
• Miranda, Blake A.
• Iniguez, Emily
• Chakerian, Meghmik
• Vaughn, Eric
• Sehgal, Megha
• Nguyen, Darren C. T.
• Yuan, Faith T. H.
• Torossian, Anita
• Ikebara, Juliane M.
• Kihara, Alexandre H.
• Silva, Alcino J.
• Kao, Jonathan C.
• Khakh, Baljit S.
• Adhikari, Avishek

Titel

Control of feeding by a bottom-up midbrain-subthalamic pathway

Ist Teil von

• Nature communications, 2024-03, Vol.15 (1), p.2111-20, Article 2111

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group UK

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Investigative exploration and foraging leading to food consumption have vital importance, but are not well-understood. Since GABAergic inputs to the lateral and ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (l/vlPAG) control such behaviors, we dissected the role of vgat-expressing GABAergic l/vlPAG cells in exploration, foraging and hunting. Here, we show that in mice vgat l/vlPAG cells encode approach to food and consumption of both live prey and non-prey foods. The activity of these cells is necessary and sufficient for inducing food-seeking leading to subsequent consumption. Activation of vgat l/vlPAG cells produces exploratory foraging and compulsive eating without altering defensive behaviors. Moreover, l/vlPAG vgat cells are bidirectionally interconnected to several feeding, exploration and investigation nodes, including the zona incerta. Remarkably, the vgat l/vlPAG projection to the zona incerta bidirectionally controls approach towards food leading to consumption. These data indicate the PAG is not only a final downstream target of top-down exploration and foraging-related inputs, but that it also influences these behaviors through a bottom-up pathway. Periaqueductal gray (PAG) inputs control hunting, but foraging-inducing PAG cells were unidentified. Here, authors show that in mice activity in the projection of vgat PAG cells to the zona incerta is sufficient and necessary for food-seeking.