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Sci. Adv., May 09 2025, 11 (19) eadt6996 | https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adt6996 A top-down insular cortex circuit crucial for non-nociceptive fear learning

Junho Han ^{1 2}, Boin Suh ^{1 2}, Jin-Hee Han ^{1 2 *}

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, South Korea.
²KAIST Institute for the BioCentury, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, South Korea.

^*Corresponding author: correspondence to Jin-Hee Han

Abstract

Understanding how threats drive fear memory formation is crucial to understanding how organisms adapt to environments and treat threat-related disorders such as PTSD. While traditional Pavlovian conditioning studies have provided valuable insights, the exclusive reliance on electric shock as a threat stimulus has limited our understanding of diverse threats. To address this, we developed a conditioning paradigm using a looming visual stimulus as an unconditioned stimulus (US) in mice and identified a distinct neural circuit for visual threat conditioning. Parabrachial CGRP neurons were necessary for both conditioning and memory retrieval. Upstream neurons in the posterior insular cortex (pIC) responded to looming stimuli, and their projections to the parabrachial nucleus (PBN) induced aversive states and drove conditioning. However, this pIC-to-PBN pathway was not required for foot-shock conditioning. These findings reveal how non-nociceptive visual stimuli can drive aversive states and fear memory formation, expanding our understanding of aversive US processing beyond traditional models.

논문정보

형식Research article
게재일2025년 05월 (BRIC 등록일 2025-05-13)
연구진국내 연구진
분야 생명과학 > 신경생물학

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