• Ada C Felix-Ortiz, Anna Beyeler, Changwoo Seo, Christopher A Leppla, Craig P Wildes, and Kay M Tye.
• The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
• Neuron. 2013 Aug 21;79(4):658-64.

AbstractThe basolateral amygdala (BLA) and ventral hippocampus (vHPC) have both been implicated in mediating anxiety-related behaviors, but the functional contribution of BLA inputs to the vHPC has never been directly investigated. Here we show that activation of BLA-vHPC synapses acutely and robustly increased anxiety-related behaviors, while inhibition of BLA-vHPC synapses decreased anxiety-related behaviors. We combined optogenetic approaches with in vivo pharmacological manipulations and ex vivo whole-cell patch-clamp recordings to dissect the local circuit mechanisms, demonstrating that activation of BLA terminals in the vHPC provided monosynaptic, glutamatergic inputs to vHPC pyramidal neurons. Furthermore, BLA inputs exerted polysynaptic, inhibitory effects mediated by local interneurons in the vHPC that may serve to balance the circuit locally. These data establish a role for BLA-vHPC synapses in bidirectionally controlling anxiety-related behaviors in an immediate, yet reversible, manner and a model for the local circuit mechanism of BLA inputs in the vHPC.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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