Cell
Volume 158, Issue 6, 11 September 2014, Pages 1348-1361
Journal home page for Cell

Article
Antagonistic Control of Social versus Repetitive Self-Grooming Behaviors by Separable Amygdala Neuronal Subsets

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.07.049Get rights and content
Under an Elsevier user license
open archive

Highlights

  • Distinct neuronal subtypes in the medial amygdala control distinct innate behaviors

  • GABAergic neurons promote aggression and other social behavior in a scalable manner

  • Glutamatergic neurons promote asocial, repetitive self-grooming

  • Activation of one neuronal population inhibits the behaviors promoted by the other

Summary

Animals display a range of innate social behaviors that play essential roles in survival and reproduction. While the medial amygdala (MeA) has been implicated in prototypic social behaviors such as aggression, the circuit-level mechanisms controlling such behaviors are not well understood. Using cell-type-specific functional manipulations, we find that distinct neuronal populations in the MeA control different social and asocial behaviors. A GABAergic subpopulation promotes aggression and two other social behaviors, while neighboring glutamatergic neurons promote repetitive self-grooming, an asocial behavior. Moreover, this glutamatergic subpopulation inhibits social interactions independently of its effect to promote self-grooming, while the GABAergic subpopulation inhibits self-grooming, even in a nonsocial context. These data suggest that social versus repetitive asocial behaviors are controlled in an antagonistic manner by inhibitory versus excitatory amygdala subpopulations, respectively. These findings provide a framework for understanding circuit-level mechanisms underlying opponency between innate behaviors, with implications for their perturbation in psychiatric disorders.

Cited by (0)