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Connections that control defence strategy

When presented with a threat, most mice freeze or hide, but a few respond more aggressively. The brain circuits underlying this behavioural choice have now been unpicked.
  1. Dayu Lin

    1. Dayu Lin is at the Neuroscience Institute, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York 10016, USA.

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My nine-year-old daughter got a pair of mice for Christmas. To acclimatize her new pets to her presence, she put her hands into their cage. One of the mice ran straight to its shelter and hid; the other stayed in a corner, held its tail up against the glass wall and rattled it rapidly. Tail rattling is a common response to stress across species (most famously in snakes1), and is considered a warning to intruders1,2. But why do some mice hide, and others threaten? What brain mechanisms determine which defensive strategy to deploy in the face of potential danger? In a paper in Nature, Salay et al.3 reveal a brain region that could be responsible for this decision in mice.

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Nature 557, 172-174 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-04747-4

References

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