Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
Unit on the Neurobiology of Affective Memory, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2022 Aug;25(8):999-1008. doi: 10.1038/s41593-022-01130-5. Epub 2022 Aug 1.
In nature, animals display defensive behaviors that reflect the spatiotemporal distance of threats. Laboratory-based paradigms that elicit specific defensive responses in rodents have provided valuable insight into the brain mechanisms that mediate the construction of defensive modes with varying degrees of threat imminence. In this Review, we discuss accumulating evidence that the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) plays a key role in this process. Specifically, we propose that the mutually inhibitory circuits of the CeA use a winner-takes-all strategy that supports transitioning across defensive modes and the execution of specific defensive behaviors to previously formed threat associations. Our proposal provides a conceptual framework in which seemingly divergent observations regarding CeA function can be interpreted and identifies various areas of priority for future research.
在自然界中，动物表现出的防御行为反映了威胁的时空距离。基于实验室的范式在啮齿动物中引发了特定的防御反应，为介导具有不同威胁迫近程度的防御模式的大脑机制提供了宝贵的见解。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了越来越多的证据表明，杏仁中央核（CeA）在这个过程中起着关键作用。具体来说，我们提出 CeA 的相互抑制回路使用一种胜者通吃的策略，支持在防御模式之间转换，并执行特定的防御行为，以适应先前形成的威胁关联。我们的建议提供了一个概念框架，可以解释 CeA 功能的看似不同的观察结果，并确定了未来研究的优先领域。
