Active avoidance requires a serial basal amygdala to nucleus accumbens shell circuit

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Neuroscience
• Animal Behavior

Background:

• Defensive behaviors are vital for survival.
• While freezing is well-studied, active avoidance circuitry remains less understood.
• The basal amygdala (BA) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) are implicated in motivated behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural circuits underlying signaled active avoidance behavior.
• To determine the role of the basal amygdala (BA) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) in active threat avoidance.

Main Methods:

• Rats were trained in an auditory-conditioned stimulus avoidance task.
• Activity-dependent protein c-Fos expression was measured in the NAcc.
• Neural activity in the NAcc shell (NAccSh) and core was silenced.
• The BA-NAccSh pathway was disconnected.

Main Results:

• Increased c-Fos expression was observed in the NAccSh following avoidance learning.
• Silencing NAccSh, but not NAcc core, disrupted avoidance behavior.
• Disconnection of the BA-NAccSh circuit impaired avoidance behavior.

Conclusions:

• The basal amygdala (BA) to nucleus accumbens shell (NAccSh) pathway is essential for learned active avoidance.
• This circuit plays a critical role in aversively motivated actions and threat avoidance.