Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 39, Issue 3, Pages 456-471Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0958-18.2018
Keywords
AGRP; behavioral antagonism; hunger; maternal nest-building; medial preoptic area; neural circuit
Categories
Funding
- National Nature Science Foundation of China [31471065, 31871066, 31771169]
- Ministry of Science and Technology Office China 973 program [2015CB559201]
- Thousand Young Talents Program of China
- Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB02030005, XDBS01010200]
- CAS interdisciplinary innovation team
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AGRP (agouti-related neuropeptide) expressing inhibitory neurons sense caloric needs of an animal to coordinate homeostatic feeding. Recent evidence suggests that AGRP neurons also suppress competing actions and motivations to mediate adaptive behavioral selection during starvation. Here, in adult mice of both sexes we show that AGRP neurons form inhibitory synapses onto similar to 30% neurons in the medial preoptic area (mPOA), a region critical for maternal care. Remarkably, optogenetically stimulating AGRP neurons decreases maternal nest-building while minimally affecting pup retrieval, partly recapitulating suppression of maternal behaviors during food restriction. In parallel, optogenetically stimulating AGRP projections to the mPOA or to the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus but not to the LHA (lateral hypothalamus area) similarly decreases maternal nest-building. Chemogenetic inhibition of mPOA neurons that express Vgat (vesicular GABA transporter), the population targeted by AGRP terminals, also decreases maternal nest-building. In comparison, chemogenetic inhibition of neurons in the LHA that express vesicular glutamate transporter 2, another hypothalamic neuronal population critical for feeding and innate drives, is ineffective. Importantly, nest-building during low temperature thermal challenge is not affected by optogenetic stimulation of AGRP -> mPOA projections. Finally, via optogenetic activation and inhibition we show that distinctive subsets of mPOA Vgat+ neurons likely underlie pup retrieval and maternal nest-building. Together, these results show that AGRP neurons can modulate maternal nest-building, in part through direct projections to the mPOA. This study corroborates other recent discoveries and underscores the broad functions that AGRP neurons play in antagonizing rivalry motivations to modulate behavioral outputs during hunger.
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