Division of Cognitive Neurobiology, Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Laboratory of Systems Neuroscience, Department of Physiology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Elife. 2023 Apr 11;12:e83012. doi: 10.7554/eLife.83012.
The ventral hippocampus (vH) plays a crucial role in anxiety-related behaviour and vH neurons increase their firing when animals explore anxiogenic environments. However, if and how such neuronal activity induces or restricts the exploration of an anxiogenic location remains unexplained. Here, we developed a novel behavioural paradigm to motivate rats to explore an anxiogenic area. Male rats ran along an elevated linear maze with protective sidewalls, which were subsequently removed in parts of the track to introduce an anxiogenic location. We recorded neuronal action potentials during task performance and found that vH neurons exhibited remapping of activity, overrepresenting anxiogenic locations. Direction-dependent firing was homogenised by the anxiogenic experience. We further showed that the activity of vH neurons predicted the extent of exploration of the anxiogenic location. Our data suggest that anxiety-related firing does not solely depend on the exploration of anxiogenic environments, but also on intentions to explore them.
腹侧海马（vH）在与焦虑相关的行为中起着关键作用，当动物探索焦虑环境时，vH 神经元会增加放电。然而，这种神经元活动如何诱导或限制对焦虑环境的探索仍然不清楚。在这里，我们开发了一种新的行为范式来激励大鼠探索焦虑环境。雄性大鼠在带有保护侧壁的高架线性迷宫中奔跑，随后在轨道的某些部分移除侧壁，以引入焦虑环境。我们在任务执行过程中记录神经元动作电位，发现 vH 神经元表现出活动的重映射，过度代表焦虑环境。焦虑体验使方向依赖性放电变得均匀。我们进一步表明，vH 神经元的活动可以预测大鼠对焦虑环境的探索程度。我们的数据表明，与焦虑相关的放电不仅取决于对焦虑环境的探索，还取决于探索它们的意图。
