A. Vanessa Stempel

Jun 26, 2024 | cell.com | A. Vanessa Stempel |Dominic Evans |Oriol Pavón Arocas |Federico Claudi

Highlights•GABAergic neurons in the dorsal PAG fire action potentials tonically•They provide a major source of synaptic inhibition to excitatory PAG neurons•Tonic GABAergic activity in the PAG sets a threshold for instinctive escape•PAG GABAergic neurons control both escape initiation and terminationSummaryEscape behavior is a set of locomotor actions that move an animal away from threat.

Nov 4, 2023 | biorxiv.org | A. Vanessa Stempel |Dominic Evans |Oriol Pavón Arocas |Federico Claudi

AbstractTo avoid predation, animals perform defensive actions that are both instinctive and adaptable to the environment. In mice, the decision to escape from imminent threats is implemented by a feed-forward circuit in the midbrain, where excitatory VGluT2+ neurons in the dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG) compute escape initiation and escape vigour from threat evidence.