Neurons for hunger and thirst transmit a negative-valence teaching signal
By J. N. Betley, Shengjin Xu, Zhen Fang, Huang Cao, Rong Gong, Christopher J. Magnus, Yang Yu, Scott Sternson. Nature, 2015
619 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Homeostasis is a biological principle for regulation of essential physiological parameters within a set range. Behavioural responses due to deviation from homeostasis are critical for survival, but motivational processes engaged by physiological need states are incompletely understood. We examined motivational characteristics of two separate neuron populations that regulate energy and fluid homeostasis by using cell-type-specific activity manipulations in mice. We found that starvation-sensitive AGRP neurons exhibit properties consistent with a negative-valence teaching signal. Mice avoided activation of AGRP neurons, indicating that AGRP neuron activity has negative valence. AGRP neuron inhibition conditioned preference for flavours and places. Correspondingly, deep-brain calcium imaging revealed that AGRP neuron activity rapidly reduced in response to food-related cues. Complementary experiments activating thirst-promoting neurons also conditioned avoidance. Therefore, these need-sensing neurons condition preference for environmental cues associated with nutrient or water ingestion, which is learned through reduction of negative-valence signals during restoration of homeostasis.
Subfields: Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, Physiology, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4d9c505b6b78f89e563c479b33d59857aca3e9cf
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In Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
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Citations in the corpus
- DREADDs for Neuroscientists (2016, background): “ETV-1 subfornical area neurons hM3Dq (Betley et al., 2015) ChR2 (Betley et al.”
- A Neural Circuit for Gut-Induced Reward. (2018, neutral): “, 2016) while conveying negative valence (Betley et al., 2015).”
- Distinct speed dependence of entorhinal island and ocean cells, including respective grid cells (2015, positive): “This technique has recently been successfully implemented in other deep-brain structures such as the hypothalamus (18, 19), and in the hippocampus (11).”