New perspectives on central amygdala function
Section snippets
The CEA and defensive responses
For nearly six decades, the CEA has been demonstrated to play a fundamental role in defensive responding (see [13]). Electrical stimulation and lesion studies were subsequently complemented by neurophysiological and pharmacological approaches culminating in the view that the CEA is a vital output station controlling and mediating a panoply of physiological and behavioral changes occurring in the face of threat (Figure 1) [1, 2]. For example, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that acute
The CEA, feeding behavior, and appetitive responses
The CEA is involved in the processing of rewarding events and the generation of appetitive behavioral responses [3, 30]. This is consistent with the existence of gustatory-related responses in the CEA [31, 32], and with its defined anatomical connectivity with reward-related, gustatory-related and feeding-related centers [33]. For example, optogenetic stimulation of neurons expressing the serotonin 2A receptor can elicit voracious feeding [11•], as can activation of specific projection pathways
CEA cellular subpopulations mediate various and specific functions
As outlined above, there is extensive evidence for specific functional roles of CEA cellular populations in processing aversive as well as appetitive information and for the generation of distinct behavioral responses. The concept that distinct molecularly identified populations reflect specific functional roles has taken us a long way in understanding how the CEA generates adaptive behaviors. However, taken together, recent findings suggest this concept may not be sufficient to explain the
Conclusions and outlook
In general, as our circuit dissection tools are becoming ever sharper and the level of specificity in our experimental approaches increases, the likelihood of identifying specific functions of individual circuit elements increases. This has shifted our focus away from particular brain areas as functional units towards the emerging view of state-dependent functional assemblies of circuits distributed across many brain regions underlying definable brain functions, such as survival behaviors. As a
Conflict of interest statement
Nothing declared.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:
• of special interest
Acknowledgements
This work has received funding by the Novartis Research Foundation, the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 669582), by project grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), by a grant from the National Center of Competences in Research: ‘SYNAPSY — The Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases’ (financed by the SNSF; all to AL), by the Heisenberg programme of the German Research Foundation (to PT), and
References (53)
- et al.
A circuit mechanism for differentiating positive and negative associations
Nature
(2015) - et al.
The amygdala central nucleus and appetitive Pavlovian conditioning: lesions impair one class of conditioned behavior
J Neurosci
(1990) - et al.
Central amygdala opioid transmission is necessary for increased high-fat intake following 24-h food deprivation, but not following intra-accumbens opioid administration
Behav Brain Res
(2014) - et al.
Corticostriatal circuit mechanisms of value-based action selection: implementation of reinforcement learning algorithms and beyond
Behav Brain Res
(2016) - et al.
Midbrain circuits for defensive behaviour
Nature
(2016) - et al.
The role of an amygdalo–nigrostriatal pathway in associative learning
J Neurosci
(1997) Emotion circuits in the brain
Annu Rev Neurosci
(2000)- et al.
The amygdala: vigilance and emotion
Mol Psychiatry
(2001) - et al.
Appetitive behavior
Ann N Y Acad Sci
(2006) - et al.
Neuronal circuits for fear and anxiety
Nat Rev Neurosci
(2015)
A competitive inhibitory circuit for selection of active and passive fear responses
Nature
Basolateral to central amygdala neural circuits for appetitive behaviors
Neuron
Vasopressin and oxytocin excite distinct neuronal populations in the central amygdala
Science
Integrated control of predatory hunting by the central nucleus of the amygdala
Cell
Central amygdala somatostatin neurons gate passive and active defensive behaviors
J Neurosci
Experience-dependent modification of a central amygdala fear circuit
Nat Neurosci
Central amygdala circuits modulate food consumption through a positive-valence mechanism
Nat Neurosci
Amygdala circuitry mediating reversible and bidirectional control of anxiety
Nature
Central representation of affective reactions in forebrain and brain stem: electrical stimulation of amygdala, stria terminalis, and adjacent structures
J Physiol
Encoding of conditioned fear in central amygdala inhibitory circuits
Nature
Htr2a-expressing cells in the central amygdala control the hierarchy between innate and learned fear
Cell
Rethinking the fear circuit: the central nucleus of the amygdala is required for the acquisition, consolidation, and expression of Pavlovian fear conditioning
J Neurosci
A central amygdala CRF circuit facilitates learning about weak threats
Neuron
Central amygdala activity during fear conditioning
J Neurosci
The paraventricular thalamus controls a central amygdala fear circuit
Nature
Distinct hippocampal pathways mediate dissociable roles of context in memory retrieval
Cell
Cited by (166)
An active inference perspective for the amygdala complex
2024, Trends in Cognitive Sciences5-HT1A receptor in the central amygdala and 5-HT2A receptor in the basolateral amygdala are involved in social hierarchy in male mice
2023, European Journal of Pharmacology