Basolateral amygdala population coding of a cued reward seeking state depends on orbitofrontal cortex

Basolateral amygdala (BLA) neuronal responses to conditioned stimuli are closely linked to the expression of conditioned behavior. An area of increasing interest is how the dynamics of BLA neurons relate to evolving behavior. Here, we recorded the activity of individual BLA neurons across the acquisition and extinction of conditioned reward seeking and employed population-level analyses to assess ongoing neural dynamics. We found that, with training, sustained cue-evoked activity emerged that discriminated between the CS+ and CS- and correlated with conditioned responding. This sustained population activity continued until reward receipt and rapidly extinguished along with conditioned behavior during extinction. To assess the contribution of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a major reciprocal partner to BLA, to this component of BLA neural activity, we inactivated OFC while recording in BLA and found blunted sustained cue-evoked activity in BLA that accompanied reduced reward seeking. Optogenetic disruption of BLA activity and OFC terminals in BLA also reduced reward seeking. Our data suggest that sustained cue-driven activity in BLA, which in part depends on OFC input, underlies conditioned reward-seeking states.