Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Institute of Experimental Medicine, H-1450 Budapest, P.O. Box 67, Hungary.
Behav Brain Res. 2010 Dec 20;215(1):7-20. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2010.05.050. Epub 2010 Jun 4.
A part of the mediobasal hypothalamus (known as hypothalamic attack area) plays a central role in the control of aggressive behavior as its electrical stimulation reliably and rapidly elicits biting attacks in cats and rodents. The efferent connections of this brain region were described in rats, but afferent pathways were not investigated so far. We injected the retrograde tracer cholera toxin B subunit into the mediobasal hypothalamus of male Wistar rats and studied the distribution of labeled cells by immunohistochemical method. The retrograde labeling outlined three continuous, distinct afferent cell populations: (i) a telencephalic midline "plate" containing the orbitofrontal - medial prefrontal - septal regions which ends in the bed nucleus of stria terminalis; (ii) a temporal column including the medial amygdala, amigdalohippocampal area and subiculum; (iii) a diffuse column along the medial hypothalamus which ends in the posterior hypothalamic nucleus. Sparse labeling was present in brainstem nuclei, except for the lateral parabrachial nucleus that provides a significant input. The projections of the medial prefrontal cortex to the hypothalamic attack area indicate a direct, earlier undescribed pathway with marked importance in the control of aggressive behavior. Similarly, we identified several brain regions which send very significant projections to the hypothalamic attack area but their importance in the control of aggressive behavior are nearly unknown. The comparison of the present and earlier findings shows that efferent and afferent connections overlap in many regions to a significant extent, suggesting that reverberating circuits are important in the control of aggressive behavior.
下丘脑的中基底部（称为下丘脑攻击区）在控制攻击性行为方面起着核心作用，因为其电刺激可可靠且快速地引发猫和啮齿动物的咬噬攻击。该脑区的传出连接已在大鼠中描述，但传入通路迄今尚未研究。我们将逆行示踪剂霍乱毒素 B 亚基注入雄性 Wistar 大鼠的中基下丘脑，并通过免疫组织化学方法研究标记细胞的分布。逆行标记勾勒出三个连续的、不同的传入细胞群：（i）一个端脑中线“板”，包含眶额 - 内侧前额叶 - 隔区，止于终纹床核；（ii）一个包含内侧杏仁核、杏仁海马区和下托的颞柱；（iii）一个沿内侧下丘脑的弥散柱，止于下丘脑后核。除了外侧臂旁核提供重要输入外，脑干核内仅有稀疏的标记。内侧前额叶皮质投射到下丘脑攻击区表明存在一条直接的、以前未描述的通路，在控制攻击性行为方面具有重要意义。同样，我们确定了几个向下丘脑攻击区发送非常重要投射的脑区，但它们在控制攻击性行为方面的重要性几乎未知。目前研究结果与早期研究结果的比较表明，传出和传入连接在许多区域重叠程度很大，这表明反射回路在控制攻击性行为中很重要。
