AI Article Synopsis
- VIP interneurons enhance the activity of prefrontal cortex neurons by disinhibition, influencing decision-making in behaviors like exploration versus avoidance.
- In a study utilizing an elevated plus maze, researchers observed that VIP interneuron activity spikes in open arm areas, which helps process signals linked to avoiding those areas.
- Inhibiting these VIP interneurons disrupts the brain's ability to form strong representations of open arm avoidance, particularly when the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex are synchronized, highlighting their crucial role in integrating inputs for guiding complex behaviors.
Article Abstract
Inhibitory interneurons expressing vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) are known to disinhibit cortical neurons. However, it is unclear how disinhibition, occurring at the single-cell level, interacts with network-level patterns of activity to shape complex behaviors. To address this, we examined the role of prefrontal VIP interneurons in a widely studied mouse behavior: deciding whether to explore or avoid the open arms of an elevated plus maze. VIP interneuron activity increases in the open arms and disinhibits prefrontal responses to hippocampal inputs, which are known to transmit signals related to open arm avoidance. Indeed, inhibiting VIP interneurons disrupts network-level representations of the open arms and decreases open arm avoidance specifically when hippocampal-prefrontal theta synchrony is strong. Thus, VIP interneurons effectively gate the ability of hippocampal input to generate prefrontal representations, which drive avoidance behavior. This shows how VIP interneurons enable cortical circuits to integrate specific inputs into network-level representations that guide complex behaviors. VIDEO ABSTRACT.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6800223 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.04.001 | DOI Listing |
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