Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences and Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, 1060 William Moore Dr, Raleigh, NC 27607, USA.
Brain Struct Funct. 2013 Jul;218(4):1033-49. doi: 10.1007/s00429-012-0445-y. Epub 2012 Jul 31.
Aggression is a complex behavior that is essential for survival. Of the various forms of aggression, impulsive violent displays without prior planning or deliberation are referred to as affective aggression. Affective aggression is thought to be caused by aberrant perceptions of, and consequent responses to, threat. Understanding the neuronal networks that regulate affective aggression is pivotal to development of novel approaches to treat chronic affective aggression. Here, we provide a detailed anatomical map of neuronal activity in the forebrain of two inbred lines of mice that were selected for low (NC100) and high (NC900) affective aggression. Attack behavior was induced in male NC900 mice by exposure to an unfamiliar male in a novel environment. Forebrain maps of c-Fos+ nuclei, which are surrogates for neuronal activity during behavior, were then generated and analyzed. NC100 males rarely exhibited affective aggression in response to the same stimulus, thus their forebrain c-Fos maps were utilized to identify unique patterns of neuronal activity in NC900s. Quantitative results indicated robust differences in the distribution patterns and densities of c-Fos+ nuclei in distinct thalamic, subthalamic, and amygdaloid nuclei, together with unique patterns of neuronal activity in the nucleus accumbens and the frontal cortices. Our findings implicate these areas as foci regulating differential behavioral responses to an unfamiliar male in NC900 mice when expressing affective aggression. Based on the highly conserved patterns of connections and organization of neuronal limbic structures from mice to humans, we speculate that neuronal activities in analogous networks may be disrupted in humans prone to maladaptive affective aggression.
攻击性是一种对生存至关重要的复杂行为。在各种形式的攻击中，没有事先计划或考虑的冲动暴力表现被称为情感攻击。情感攻击被认为是由对威胁的异常感知和随之而来的反应引起的。了解调节情感攻击的神经元网络对于开发治疗慢性情感攻击的新方法至关重要。在这里，我们提供了两个近交系小鼠前额叶神经元活动的详细解剖图谱，这两个系被选择用于低（NC100）和高（NC900）情感攻击性。通过在新环境中暴露于陌生雄性，诱导雄性 NC900 小鼠的攻击行为。然后生成并分析行为期间 c-Fos+核的脑区图谱，该核是神经元活动的替代物。NC100 雄性很少对相同的刺激表现出情感攻击，因此它们的前额叶 c-Fos 图谱被用来识别 NC900 中独特的神经元活动模式。定量结果表明，在不同的丘脑、下丘脑和杏仁核核中，c-Fos+核的分布模式和密度存在明显差异，同时在伏隔核和额皮质中存在独特的神经元活动模式。我们的研究结果表明，这些区域是调节 NC900 小鼠在表达情感攻击时对陌生雄性产生不同行为反应的焦点。基于从老鼠到人类的神经元边缘结构的连接和组织的高度保守模式，我们推测在容易出现适应不良情感攻击的人类中，类似网络的神经元活动可能会受到干扰。
