Aversion to environmental cues of predators is an integral part of defensive behaviors in many prey animals. It enhances their survival and probability of future reproduction. At the same time, animals cannot be maximally defended because imperatives of defense usually tradeoff with behaviors required for sexual reproduction like display of dominance and production of sexual pheromones. Here we approach this tradeoff through the lens of arginine vasopressin neurons within the posterodorsal medial amygdala of mice. This neuronal population is known to be involved in sexual behaviors like approach to sexually salient cues. We show that chemogenetic partial ablation of this neuronal population increases aversion to predator odors. Moreover, overexpression of arginine vasopressin within this population is sufficient to reduce aversion to predator odors. The loss of fear of the predator odor occurs in parallel with increased recruitment of arginine vasopressin neurons within the posterodorsal medial amygdala. These observations suggest that arginine vasopressin neurons in the medial aspect of the extended amygdala are a proximate locus for the reduction in innate fear during life stages dominated by reproductive efforts.


中文翻译：

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内侧杏仁核精氨酸加压素神经元调节雄性小鼠对猫气味的先天厌恶。

对捕食者的环境线索的厌恶是许多猎物动物防御行为的一个组成部分。它提高了它们的生存率和未来繁殖的可能性。同时，不能最大限度地保护动物，因为防御的必要性通常与有性生殖所需的行为（如显示优势和性信息素的产生）进行权衡。在这里，我们通过小鼠后背内侧杏仁核内的精氨酸加压素神经元的镜头来处理这种权衡。众所周知，这种神经元群体与性行为有关，例如接近性显着线索。我们表明，这种神经元群体的化学遗传学部分消融会增加对捕食者气味的厌恶。而且，该群体中精氨酸加压素的过度表达足以减少对捕食者气味的厌恶。对捕食者气味的恐惧的丧失与后背内侧杏仁核内精氨酸加压素神经元的募集同时发生。这些观察结果表明，扩展杏仁核内侧的精氨酸加压素神经元是在以生殖努力为主的生命阶段减少先天恐惧的邻近位点。