Rapid Spatial Learning Controls Instinctive Defensive Behavior in Mice.
Rapid Spatial Learning Controls Instinctive Defensive Behavior in Mice.
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2017.03.031
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发表时间：
2017-05-08
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Branco T
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Vale R;Evans DA;Branco T
本能的防御行为对动物的生存至关重要。在整个动物界，有一些感觉刺激天生就代表着威胁，并引发诸如逃跑或冻结等刻板印象的行为。虽然与生俱来的行为被认为是硬连接的刺激反应，但它们在动态环境中发挥作用，而且已经证明，威胁的性质及其感知的强度、获得食物来源的途径以及过去经验的期望等因素都会影响防御行为，这表明它们的表达是可以调节的。然而，尽管最近的工作，关于老鼠天生的防御行为有多灵活，以及它们被经验修改的速度有多快，我们知之甚少。为了解决这一问题，我们研究了逃逸行为对学习的空间环境知识的依赖性，以及当环境急剧变化时，行为是如何更新的。使用具有天生威胁性视觉和听觉刺激的行为分析，我们表明老鼠逃脱的主要目标是到达先前记忆的避难所位置。对逃生目标的记忆可以在一次持续不到20次的躲避S中形成，空间环境的变化导致防御动作的快速更新，包括将防御策略从逃跑改为冻结。我们的结果表明，尽管特定的感觉特征和防御行为之间存在天生的联系，但本能的防御行为出人意料地灵活，可以通过经验迅速更新，以适应不断变化的空间环境。小鼠本能地逃避到先前记忆的避难所位置的定向和导航，不需要避难所相关的线索，避难所位置的记忆是在单次试验中形成的，空间环境的变化导致Vale等人快速更新防御动作。研究表明，暴露在天生厌恶刺激下的小鼠会本能地逃到一个避难所，这是在探索环境的过程中学会的。避难所存在和位置的记忆是在一次试验中形成的，并且可以快速更新，使小鼠能够快速适应空间环境的变化。
Instinctive defensive behaviors are essential for animal survival. Across the animal kingdom, there are sensory stimuli that innately represent threat and trigger stereotyped behaviors such as escape or freezing. While innate behaviors are considered to be hard-wired stimulus-responses, they act within dynamic environments, and factors such as the properties of the threat and its perceived intensity, access to food sources, and expectations from past experience have been shown to influence defensive behaviors, suggesting that their expression can be modulated. However, despite recent work, little is known about how flexible mouse innate defensive behaviors are and how quickly they can be modified by experience. To address this, we have investigated the dependence of escape behavior on learned knowledge about the spatial environment and how the behavior is updated when the environment changes acutely. Using behavioral assays with innately threatening visual and auditory stimuli, we show that the primary goal of escape in mice is to reach a previously memorized shelter location. Memory of the escape target can be formed in a single shelter visit lasting less than 20 s, and changes in the spatial environment lead to a rapid update of the defensive action, including changing the defensive strategy from escape to freezing. Our results show that although there are innate links between specific sensory features and defensive behavior, instinctive defensive actions are surprisingly flexible and can be rapidly updated by experience to adapt to changing spatial environments. Mice instinctively escape to a previously memorized shelter location Orientation and navigation to the shelter does not require shelter-related cues Memory of the shelter location is formed in a single trial Changes in the spatial environment lead to rapid updates of defensive actions Vale et al. show that mice exposed to innately aversive stimuli instinctively escape to a shelter location that was learned during exploration of the environment. Memory of shelter existence and location is formed in a single trial and can be rapidly updated, allowing mice to quickly adapt defensive actions to changes in the spatial environment.