title: The lateral septum and anterior hypothalamus act in tandem to regulate burying in the shock-probe test but not open-arm avoidance in the elevated plus-maze.
abstract: Both the lateral septum (LS) and anterior hypothalamus (AHA) regulate behavioural defense. We tested whether those two interconnected structures act in serial in that regard. Infusions of the GABAA agonist muscimol into one side of the LS and the contralateral (but not ipsilateral) AHA suppressed rats' burying in the shock-probe test whereas none of our muscimol infusion approaches altered their open-arm avoidance in the elevated plus-maze. These results suggest that the LS-AHA circuit serves a specialized role in defensive responses towards discrete, localizable threat stimuli but not towards potential threats.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada.
authors.forename: Steven J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Lamontagne
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada; Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada.
authors.forename: Mary C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Olmstead
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada; Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada. Electronic address: menard@queensu.ca.
authors.forename: Janet L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Menard
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D018755:GABA Agonists / Q000494:pharmacology; D007026:Hypothalamic Area, Lateral / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D007032:Hypothalamus, Anterior / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D009118:Muscimol / Q000494:pharmacology; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D020665:Septum of Brain / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D018755:GABA Agonists; D009118:Muscimol
keywords: Animal models; Anxiety; Behavioral defense; Fear