Afferent projections of the dorsal premammillary nucleus of the hypothalamus (PMD) in C57BL/6 mice

Abstract

Neural circuits are responsible for modulating behaviors observed in the animals and, by the advent of new technologies, a more dynamic analysis of these pathways has been possible, in order to characterize how information flows between the nuclei composing them. The circuit of interest in our laboratory is the one mobilized during social defense, responsible for the organization of the defense response observed in the face of a threat of a co-specific animal. This project aims to characterize the afferents in C57Bl / 6 mice of the pre-mammillary nucleus of the hypothalamus, important for the modulation of passive defense behavior. For this, we will use AAV-retrograde virus injection as a marker in transgenic mice of the V-gat Cre and V-glut Cre strains. This experiment allows to locate the encephalic areas that project to the dorsal pre-mammillary nucleus making it possible to chemically characterize the cells of these pathways, defining them as GABAergic, glutamatergic and neurons that use other neuromediators.